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John King’s 
Question Class 


A 


BY X 

CHARLES M. SHELDON 

AUTHOR OF “ IN HIS STEPS, ‘What Would Jesus Do?’ ” 
“THE CRUCIFIXION OF PHILLIP STRONG,” 

“HIS BROTHER’S KEEPER,” Etc. 


CHICAGO 

Advance Publishing Co. 


215 MADISON STREET 


SECOND OOPV, 
1899 . 



40269 

Copyright, 1899 

BY 

ADVANCE PUBLISHING CO. 

IN THE 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 

AND 

GREAT BRITAIN. 


All rig-hts reserved 





-JOHN A. ULRICH, Printer & Binder. 
215 Madison Street, Chicago. 


PREFACE 


This lititle stcry like all the others written by me was 
first read to my own Sunday evening congregation in the 
Central Church, Topeka, Kansas, 

The questions in the story are literal copies of the ques- 
tions actually asked during the reading of the story by the 
young people in my own congregation. Every Sunda:f a list 
of written questions was handed me by the young people 
and during the week I put them intO' the chapter of the 
story read at the next Sunday evening service. 

This fact accounts for the nature of the questions asked.^ 
There has been no attempt in this little story to give long, 
complete, exhaustive answers to wise, theological, or deeply 
philosophical questions. If the answers seem sometimes to 
be very incomplete it is simply because I intended them to 
suggest rather than exhaust the subject in each case. If 
the questions seem sometimes to be lacking in depth or 
power it is simply because they are questions that living 
people often ask. The reader of this story will please 
remember that the story was planned and written and read 
first of all for a living audience of my own, whose needs I 
was trying to meet as I knew them. 

The story was helpful to my own young i)eople when it 
was read to them. I send it out in the printed form praying 
that it may add, even a little, to the Christian life of young 
people everywhere. 

CHARLES M. SHELDON. 
Topeka, Kansas, Central Church. 1899. 


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JOHN KING’S 

QUESTION CLASS. 


CHAPTER I. 

T was nearly time for the concert to begin. 
People were still coming into the hall, how- 
ever, and the orchestra had not yet taken its 
place. There was an expectant air about the audience 
as if it had come out to hear something unusual. By 
the time the orchestra had come up and begun to tune 
its instruments, nearly every seat in the large building 
was taken. Still the people continued to come and the 
wide space under the balcony at the rear filled up with 
those who were compelled to stand. 

Behind the curtain in a small room close by the 
front of the stage, two persons were sitting. They were 
brother and sister. Other persons were going and com- 
ing from other rooms surrounding the stage, and the 
excitement which always belongs to a concert where 
several singers and performers make their first public 



JOOT KING’S 


appearance was apparent in the movements and manner 
of those who were to take part. 

The two sitting in the small room, however, were left 
alone for a little while. The brother was more nerv- 
ous than the sister. He rose every few moments to look 
out through a hole in the curtain or to view his 
appearance, what he could see of it, in a very small 
mirror which he put back each time into his vest 
pocket. 

^^DonT you begin to feel nervous yet, Vi?’’ The 
brother put the question after one of his trips to the 
curtain and the announcement that it was going to be 
a crowded house. 

^^Ho, I can’t say that I do very much, Vic,” said the 
sister. She sat quietly in the same place with a violin 
on her lap and a score of music on a rack near by. 

^^Well, I don’t understand you, Victoria. All last 
week and this up to six o’clock this, evening you have 
been worrying over our comeout to-night. And now 
you sit there as unconcerned as if you knew you wouldn’t 
forget a note when you know you will have to face all 
the best musicians in the city.” 

know I shall not forget,” replied the sister; ^^But 
you will, Victor, if you don’t quiet yourself.” 

‘T will! I know I will!” 


QUESTION CLASS. 


3 


^^Yoii ought to say, ^slialL’ How often have I cor- 
rected your use of the future — 

^^Now, Vi, I can stand a good deal but I can’t stand 
being corrected for my grammar to-night. Don’t you 
see what misery I’m in? I’ve got stage fright the worst 
kind. I know I can’t remember half the words to that 
first song and I come on number two. And I’ve got an 
awful cold and my collar is melted right off of me and 
my hands tremble so that people will know I am scared 
to death.” He rose again and going to the curtain, 
looked out, throwing sentences in a subdued voice to 
the sister. 

^^My! Ain’t there a jam though! Lots of folks stand- 
ing up under the gallery. There’s Doc. Palfrey and his 
wife and some one else in the front row. They’re fear- 
ful critical. I know I will, ^shall,’ I mean, go all to 
pieces if Mrs. Palfrey once fixes me with her cold ici- 
cle kind of a smile. Don’t you feel it growing chillier 
already? There’s Mr. Clayton and his sister just sitting 
down in the middle front row of the balcony. Clayton 
has a good ear for music. Seems to appreciate the vio- 
lin, don’t you think, Vi? Something or other draws 
him to our house a good deal lately. Wonder if he 
comes to hear me sing? Say, Vi,” the brother left the 
curtain and came back to his sister. 'T’m really afraid 


4 


jom laNG’S 


1 ehall go to pieces before that audience. I’m only talk- 
ing to keep up appearances. Ilelp me out, won’t you, 
Vi, that’s a good fellow?” 

He laid his hand on his sister’s and spoke half in 
fun and half in earnest but he was really very much 
excited and the girl replied seriously, 

^^Victor, if you break down to night or fail 
to do yourself justice I shall walk out of the 
hall and feel disgraced as long as I live. Remem- 
ber father!” It was wonderful to see the effect 
of this brief, almost sharp, response to the appeal 
for encouragement. The boy, ^‘young man” he called 
himself, though he was not yet of age, quivered 
all over. Then his slight form stiffened, he 
thrust one hand deep into his pocket and ran 
the other hand up through a head of hair as 
black as hair ever is, until it stood up in con- 
fusion all over. His whole appearance was so 
different in a moment from the nervous, dandi- 
fied, almost flippant youth who had whimpered 
in tones of half jest and earnest that Vic- 
toria smiled. She had looked and spoken 
sternly. 

''What are you laughing at?” asked Victor sud- 
denly. 


QUESflON CLASS. 


5 


^‘Better look in your glass and see. Bnt you won’t 
fail, will you, dear?” 

“No danger,” replied the brother very calmly. 

He took out his pocket mirror and arranged his 
tumbled hair, the sister looking on, amused at the dis- 
play of a very marked personal vanity. 

“There, I’m all right now. See me, Vi! Feel my 
pulse. Want to look at my tongue? Where’s that 
cough lozenge? Oh, here in my vest pocket. You 
needn’t fear. I won’t disgrace you. Dear old father! 
To think I had almost forgotten him. I’m awful self- 
ish when I’m thinking about myself. Most folks are, 
don’t you think? But I’m all right again now, Vi.” 
And he went back to his place by the curtain and just 
then some other persons came in and the orchestra 
opened the evening’s program with its overture. 

The curtain went up and the first player from the 
performers behind the scenes went on with a piano 
solo. 

But the special interest of the audience in this partic- 
ular concert which occurred not many years ago, was on 
account of the appearance in public of the twin brother 
and sister, Victor and Victoria Stanwood. It would take 
too long to relate all the reasons which led up to the 
fact of such a crowded and almost excited audience of 


6 


JOHN KINO’S 


the best musicians in the city to listen to the musical per- 
formance of two persons not twenty years old. Certain 
very remarkable qualities in both brother and sister, 
even at this very early age, had given them recognition 
as artists even before their public appearance. And 
when Victor at the close of the first number came out 
after his accompanist and stood before the audience that 
crowded every corner of the great hall, he faced people 
who had heard so much about him and expected so 
much from him that it would not have been surprising 
if a stouter heart than his had throbbed with fever at the 
ordeal of satisfying such a gathering. For with his nat- 
ural talent as a musician he was but an undeveloped 
inexperienced lad. And in spite of his promise to his 
sister and the thought of what disgrace would follow 
failure on this occasion, his knees shook, his tongue 
seemed to fill his mouth, and his lips were dry. He 
knew that the accompanist had finished the few notes, 
instrumental to his song, and he knew that he had 
failed to make an audible sound on the very first word. 
It was a crisis in his life, so he magnified the occasion, 
and if in that brief second he had turned and fled from 
the stage it is probable that the entire course of the 
lives of at least two of the persons in this story would 
have been completely changed. 


QUESTION CLASS. 


7 


But his voice came to him on the second note and 
with the utterance in his ears, instantly all thought of 
his audience was gone. The player at the piano had 
halted just a fraction of time, but went right on, and 
Victor sang out with the voice that God had given him 
and the people looked and listened. With the excep- 
tion of that slight failure many a gifted musician in the 
audience declared to himself as Victor went on that 
the most beautiful tenor voice heard in years was being 
heard in that hall that night. And yet, when he fin- 
ished, the applause was not the kind that brings the 
performer back, flushed and triumphant. It was hearty 
and general, but the audience was critical, and that 
slight error at the beginning marred an otherwise al- 
most perfect rendering. Besides, Victor was on the 
program for a second number. Evidently the audience 
intended to give him another trial before it took him 
into the popular favor. 

He finished and went back, and the rest of the sing- 
ers and players congratulated him. 

He did not reply and as soon as it was evident that 
there was no encore for him he drew his sister back 
into the room farthest from the stage and while the 
next singer went on, he burst out in an angry whisper: 
won’t go on again to-night! I disgraced myself 


8 


JOHN KING’S 


and you and father and everybody. Oh, I am a fool! 
I can’t control my miserable nerves! I never was meant 
for a public singer! I’ll find a job to-morrow blacking 
boots or selling something on the street. Or else I’ll 
get a hand organ and a monkey and travel, and train 
the monkey to turn the handle when I lose control of 
myself before an audience.” 

Victoria looked at him a moment in silence. She 
was excited for the first time in the evening and angry, 
but not at Victor. She could not understand why the 
audience had refused to call Victor back. And she felt 
indignant to think that such a slight thing as the omis- 
sion of one note would count with an audience in such 
an event, as it evidently had. 

^^Vic,” she said, ^^your singing was perfect. Your 
voice is a true tenor of unusual quality and those peo- 
ple know it. Disgraced! The people do not know what 
is right. I will show them! No. You must sing again. 
You will not be afraid any more! You must sing. Our 
future depends on winning this audience. Our very 
living is in the success of to-night.” 

Victor was silent a moment. He was growing out 
of the boy into the man and the events of the evening 
were developing him very rapidly. He walked up and 
down the little room and said. 


QUESTION CLASS. 


9 


I wouldn’t go through that experience again 
for all the fame in creation. But — I believe I can win 
yet. I know I am not afraid any more. Did I look 
well?” He asked the question with a ludicrous 
change from his former angry petulance to inquisi- 
tive vanity. 

Just then the singer who had gone on, finished and 
was recalled. “Your turn after the next, Victoria. Did 
I look well?” 

^^The back of your head was all I could see and it 
was very becoming and not at all pale,” replied his 
sister.' ‘^‘What do you care how you look, Victor, when 
your gift lies in your voice?” 

care a good deal,” said Victor who never lost his 
temper at any remarks on his personal vanity. He took 
out his mirror, arranged his tie and carefully brushed 
up his thick black hair from his forehead. 

must go forward now, Vic,” said his sister as the 
next performer was nearing the end of her song. 

^^You are not the least nervous?” Victor asked with 
admiration. Victoria shook her head firmly. ^^See,” 
she said. She held out her violin at arm’s length with 
the music score between her fingers in such a way that 
the least possible trembling would have fluttered the 
paper agaiust the instrument. Victor smiled and kissed 


10 


JOHN KING’S 


her. She dropped the music and turning away, walked 
up to the entrance, ready to go on. 

Her whole soul was in the part now before her. 
The audience saw come upon the stage a small, quiet 
figure, a well shaped mouth, undaunted eyes and a 
spirit of mastery and communion with the instrument 
that every audience loves to see in a public instrument- 
alist. The first touch of her bow was imperative. It 
seemed to say to the violin, ^^We are very good friends 
hut I am the superior. I must be obeyed.’’ She played 
with no music before her. Nothing but the audience 
and its unhesitating sympathy. And she was certain of 
it from the very first note. She knew that, all the time 
she was playing. She knew also that she had never 
played better, with more firC', expression, real genius. 
And when the last note was played and she had left the 
stage, the storm of hand clapping and cheers seemed 
almost like a torrent leaping over the foot lights and 
sweeping her back behind the scenery. 

There was no mistaking the applause. It was a re- 
call. Victoria hesitated a moment urged by the other 
performers to go on again. But she refused. She was 
angry with the people for their treatment of Victor. 
'T tell you I won’t go out again until my turn on the 
program!” She said to the leader of the concert when 


QUESTION CLASS. 


11 


lie begged her to respond to the encore. She drew Vic- 
tor back behind the scenery and even there the applause 
followed her. It would die down and then break out 
with greater volume. As long as it continued, the next 
singer on the program did not wish to appear. All the 
musicians gathered about Victoria. Even Victor en- 
treated her to go out, even if only to bow. But Victoria 
sat immovable and unmoved. 

w'ill not go until my turn,^’ she said. 

^ ^Oughtn’t you to say shall not go?’’ ’ asked Victor. 

^^Either word is correct this time,” said Victoria 
smiling just a little. 

^^But it is rude to the audience not even to acknowl- 
edge the recall with a bow,” suggested the leader of the 
evening. 

^^Is it? It was very rude of them not to acknowl- 
edge Victor’s singing.” And Victoria turned her back 
on every one except Victor whose vanity received a 
fresh addition from his sister’s action. 

Finally the audience grew tired of clapping. Per- 
haps some of the musicians understood well enough why 
the violinist did not appear. However that may be, the 
program was taken up without the re-appearance of 
Victoria and after two or three brief numbers, Victor 
came on for hjs second song. 


12 


JOm KING’S 


The audience warmly applauded as lie came for- 
ward. One can never tell just what an audience will do 
on certain occasions. Evidently they had no grudge 
against him on account of his sister’s obstinacy. He 
was very confident this time. His eye looked carefully 
over the house and far back in a seat under the balcony 
he saw a shabby figure in an old faded overcoat. The 
face of this figure was the face of one at war with him- 
self. It was discolored and diseased with the passion 
of drink but the head was noble in its shape and 
crowned with a splendid mass of blackest hair. It was 
the sight of that head and the intent, 'hungry, half- 
shamed, half-proud look in the countenance that 
brought back to Victor’s thought his sister’s words, 
^^Kemember father.” Yes, there he sat, their father; 
and the thought of what he was and what he was doing 
and what success or failure on the part of the twins 
might mean to him, nerved the boy to do what he did. 
And the audience was the delighted judge of it. Such 
a voice! There was much wanting in technique, in 
phrasing, in handling professionally. All that would 
come with riper years. But the voice itself was God- 
given. It filled the souls of all lovers of music with 
rare delight. This time the encore came swift and 
unmistakable. The voice had captured the audience. 


QUESTION CLASS. 


13 


And they yielded. Victor, proud, exultant, vain, came 
back, bowed, and then stepped back of the scenes. But 
the audience would not be satisfied. They must hear 
him again. And after a little he came forward a^ain 
and sang even better than before and was recalled. 
There was no question of his triumph. It was com- 
plete. And when he had finished at last, even Victoria 
was satisfied. ^Tt was beautiful. My dear, you did won- 
derfully. I did not think you could do so well.’’ Vic- 
toria petted him until he was in danger of being com- 
pletely spoiled. Victor took it more quietly than might 
have been expected. “I saw father back under the bal- 
cony, right hand side,” he whispered to his sister. 

There was no opportunity for brother and sister to 
talk together much more as the program was drawing 
to its close now and Victoria’s was the last number. 
The success of Victor roused her to the highest pitch. 
And when at last she appeared before the audience she 
felt far beyond even her best self. 

But never did a performer with so much at stake 
for future success in public have to overcome as Vic- 
toria had that night. She was well enough aware that 
her refusal to appear when called upon before was so 
altogether rude and unusual that she had offended very 
many of the best musicians in the house, even sup^ 


14 


JOHN KING’S 


jjosing they understood her reason for not appearing. 
As she came forward now, it was in perfect silence. The 
audience was cold and hostile. She thought she saw a 
mo^^ement in the back of the hall as if some persons 
were going out before she began. Then her eyes caught 
the face of the figure in the shabby overcoat under the 
balcony. She w'as not frightened nor dismayed at the 
silence. And as she began, she saw nothing and no one 
in the audience but that one face of the father. As she 
w'ent on she did not see even that. The passion of her 
music caught her up and carried her on its wave, while 
at the same time she seemed capable of directing the 
wave which bore her on. It was true she was outplay- 
ing herself, and it was also true she was gaining the 
audience. People leaned forward. Old musical critics 
listened with, nods of approval. A rest in the violin 
while the piano played on, was broken by a sound of 
applause that instantly stopped as the violin went on 
again. But when she finished, she knew she had won 
the audience. The applause was continuous. The peo- 
ple instead of rising to go, remained seated, and waited 
for Victoria to come on again. She played a little slum- 
ber song without the piano and was encored for that. 
But she simply bowed in response, refusing to play 
more. And the concert was ended. 


QUESTION CLASS. 


15 


But the results of that evening with its incidents, 
small as they seem in the telling of them, were the 
results that Victoria had anticipated in the case of 
real success before such an audience. To tell what 
they were, we must follow Victor and his sister 
home. 

The father was waiting a little beyond the stage 
entrance and as Victor and Victoria came out he joined 
them, Victoria taking his arm and Victor walking along 
by his side. They walked thus for half a mile before 
they turned into a court and opening a small door at 
the top of a short flight of stone steps entered a plain 
room which opened into two others with doors at oppo- 
site sides of the main or living room. 

It is not the purpose of this story to go into details 
of the previous home life of Victor and his sister. 
Briefly, the mother had died when they were very young. 
The father with really rare musical abilities had lost 
one position, after another through a childish lack of 
business ability as well as through a growing passion for 
drink, rendering him at times useless for days. At this 
particular time he was engaged in one of the smaller 
theatres as one of the orchestra. He still retained a 
few good pupils. But no one except Victoria could real- 
ize the little shifts and devices that the last few years 


IG 


JOUV KING’S 


had known in providing for the common wants of the 
home. The father revered his children. In his worst 
moments of passion he would remain away from home 
for shame. The brother and sister for their part would 
have reverenced him if their pity and shame had not 
been far larger feelings. The thought of her father play- 
ing his violin in the orchestra of a disreputable amuse- 
ment hall was poison to the thought of Victoria. The 
thought that he was doing it because it was necessary 
to do even that in order that they might all live, was 
agony to her. Many a night the young girl had waited 
until the step of her father sounded stumbling up the 
stone steps and she had seen him come in more than once 
reeling with exhaustion and the stupor of intoxication 
and fall across the floor, there to sleep off the effects 
of his passion while she would creep away and sob her- 
self to sleep with the name of ^^God’^ and ^^mother’’ 
mingling in her prayer and speech and dream. Only 
the growing knowledge of her own musical power gave 
her courage to live as days grew on into years and she 
began to be a woman. Victor’s voice, too, gave her 
hope. People, the public, that vague thing ^The pub- 
lic,” paid money for such voices. Some time they 
would be able to sell for food and clothes and luxu- 
ries the talents God had given them. Then the father 


QUESTION CLASS. 


17 


should leave his place and the growing disgrace and 
shame and agony would give way to better, happier 
times. 

As the girl had encouraged the brother to develop 
his great natural gift, the father also in his better 
moments knew how to direct the musical studies of the 
twins. It was not surprising that assisted by nature’s 
own gift to start with and by the very able direction of 
the father, the tw^o had developed surprising powder. 
One or two of Mr. Stanwood’s pupils discovered the 
secret of rare musical ability in the violin and the voice 
at the old musician’s house. It was not difficult for 
several parlor musicals at wffiich the twins were invited 
to take part, to spread their fame as musicians about the 
city. Then when the large concert was projected by 
music lovers, the twins were secured, as already known 
in a smaller way to very many. It was, however, really 
their first large public appearance. And the occasion 
was of great importance to Victoria for the opportunity 
it would probably offer of securing some permanent 
position for Victor and herself where they could earn 
enough to support themselves and the father. It was 
true that all that evening, with all her love for her 
music and her complete joy in its performance, Vic- 
toria had felt running all through her thought as she 


18 


JOHN KING^S 


faced the people, any one here, any manager or 

entertainment bureau or director, be likely to make me 
an offer to play anywhere for money?” That may 
sound very unpoetical and unmusical, but it is what 
lay in the girl’s mind and what she was think- 
ing of all the way home and as she talked over 
the evening and its triumph with Victor and the 
father. 

^^Well,” said Victor, yawning, as he sat with his legs 
straight out before him and his hands deep in his 
pockets, “Fm sleepy and tired. I’m going to bed- It 
isn’t healthy for tenors to sit up late.” 

He rose and went over and kissed Victoria, patting 
her on the cheek and saying, “You were my good angel 
to-night, Vi. If I have an offer to go on the road with a 
company I won’t, or is it I ^shan’t,’ go, unless you go 
with me?” 

He went over to his father, stooped and kissed his 
cheek as he had done ever since he was a boy two years 
old, said good night, and went up stairs. The father 
timidly spoke to Victoria, “My dear, you must be very 
tired. It has been a trying evening for you.” 

“No, father,” said Victoria, “I am not tired. I am 
very strong. But it is late and I promised Aura that I 
would come early in the morning and play for her. 


QUESTION GLASS. 


19 


So good night, father.’^ She went over and as Victor 
had done she kissed him on the cheek. The father drew 
her down to him and returned the caress with unusual 
affection. Victoria felt it deeply. ^Toor old father!’’ 
she said as she went out of the room. 

The moment she was gone, her father rose and cau- 
tiously shut the doors leading to the upstairs rooms. 
He then walked very stealthily to a cupboard, took out 
a glass and with a trembling hand produced a bottle of 
whisky from his overcoat pocket. He sat down by the 
dining room table and drank until he was unable to 
walk across the room to his bed room which was at the 
other end of the dining room. He tried to lie down on 
a lounge near the door but fell upon the floor and there 
Victoria found him when she came down in the morn- 
ing. It was a common occurrence, but the shame of it 
grew upon Victoria. She had tried everything to 
reform, to remove the passion from him. Everything 
had failed. She saw nothing in the way of hope except 
a complete change of life. She could not endure it 
much longer. She and Victor had a hurried and mea- 
ger breakfast and then Victoria, leaving the father to 
sleep himself sober, went off to see her one great friend 
Aura and play to her a little while. 

Aura was a crippled invalid. It was perhaps because 


20 


JOHN KINO’S ' 


she lacked all the strong, healthy, iron-nerved quali- 
ties of Victoria that Victoria had caught the poor 
bruised, broken body up into her friendship and poured 
out on her what she never gave any other of her few 
acquaintances. She lived only a few blocks away, with 
her aunt who had brought her into the city at the time 
of the accident which crippled her, and still kept her 
there for medical treatment. The two girls were the 
same age. It was Victoria’s custom to come in nearly 
every morning and play a little while. Music to the 
invalid was rest to tired nerves and aching limbs. 

She greeted Victoria this morning with a feeble cry 
of congratulations. 

^^See! Aunt has been reading me the account of the 
concert last night. How proud you must be. And Vic- 
tor too.” 

haven’t seen the paper,” replied Victoria coloring 
with real pleasure. ^‘^What does it say?” 

Aura’s aunt came in. ^Tt says you and Victor are 
the finest, best player and singer in the city. And a 
good deal more,” she said. 

suppose we shall not hear you very much 
more?” said Ama, with a wjstful glance at the violin 
case as Victoria placed it in a chair while she laid aside 
her wraps. 


QUESTION CLASS. 


21 


^‘Why not?” she asked, as she came up to the bed 
and stroked the invalid’s fingers between her own sup- 
ple hands. 

‘^Because you will play for a large salary now,” said 
Aura simply. 

^‘^As if that would make any difference here. Aura. 
You know I shall always play for you.” 

'^Will you? How good you are. But I shall lose 
you now, Fm afraid.’” 

Victoria took out the violin, and as she tuned it she 
said earnestly, 

'^Aura, I promise you I shall always regard my en- 
gagement here with you as sacred. You know you can 
always send for me at any time and I shall come. And 
as for the salary — wait — ” 

Victoria smiled and at once began to play. The 
effect on the invalid was instantaneous. She grew 
quiet and lapsed into a sort of trance. Victoria 
played for ten minutes. At the end of that time the 
doctor came and Victoria went away feeling restless and 
weary herself this morning as if something important 
were about to happen. 

AVhen she reached home she found two men in the 
dining room which was sitting room, reception room, 
and parlor as well, talking with Victor- Victor, 


22 


jom KING^S 


whose manner betrayed excitement introduced the 
strangers. 

^‘^They have come from the music committee of 
John King’s church to know if I can be engaged to 
sing there next Sunday or for the winter/’ said Victor 
with little attempt to conceal his satisfaction at the 
offer. 

^^We regard your brother’s voice as remarkable,” 
said the gentlemen. ^^We know he "would prove very 
acceptable to the church at this time.” 

Victoria had not thought of a church in connection 
with Victor’s voice. She had thought of him as going 
into concert work. But the more she thought of it the 
more she liked it. When the gentlemen finally went 
away they made an agreement with Victor to sing for 
the next month in John King’s church as solo singer 
at a price that even Victoria thought was liberal. 

Victor was jubilant. ^Think of that, Vi! In John 
King’s church too! It’s the finest place in the city. The 
largest audiences and the most cultured people!” 

^Tt’s good,” said Victoria seriously. She did not say 
much. Matters were turning out as she hoped. The con- 
cert was bearing fruit. She was glad for Victor. Only 
she wondered if she would have any offer. Victor did 
not seem to think of her. Then she felt ashamed of her 


(Ji til^TIOX CLASPS ^ 


23 


sellishness and tried to enter into Victor^s plans and 
ambitions as he talked over his prospects. 

In the afternoon she was sitting alone in the room, 
Victor and the father both having gone out, when a 
messenger boy brought a note. She eagerly opened it 
and read: 

To Miss Victoria Stanwood, 

Dear Miss Stanwood: 

I very much regret my inability to call in person and see you 
with reference to a possible engagement in the New Concert 
Company, of which you have doubtless heard and of which I am 
at present the manager. If you could find it convenient to call at 
my office, (here followed street and number) at 3 o’clock this 
afternoon I shall be pleased to see you and arrive at some agree- 
ment. I regret that my business will take me out of the city for 
two months and I am obliged to leave at 4 P. M. If any arrange- 
ment is made by which you become a member of the company 
it is very important that it be made at once and quite necessary 
to complete the terms before I leave the city. I can explain 
this to you. Trusting I may have the great pleasure of an inter- 
view with you at the designated time. I am very truly, 

Here followed the name of one of the most famous 
musical directors and managers of Concert Companies 
in the country. 

Victoria looked at the clock. It was half past two 
already. She would have plenty of time to walk leis- 
urely to the office. But she would go out doors and 
walk off her excitement by going around a longer way. 
She put on her hat and cloak and had reached the door 
when a boy came running up the steps and handed her 


24 


JOi/.V KINCrS QUEf^TION CLASS. 


a note. She opened it hastily. It was written by 
Aura’s aunt and read, 


My Dear Victoria: 

Since you left us this morning, Aura has had a bad attack 
like the one you saw two weeks ago. She calls incessantly for 
you. Can you come at once and bring your violin? She is partly 
unconscious but I think the music will quiet her. Hastily, 

Mrs. Sutton. 

Victoria read the note twdce. Then she looked at 
the other note from the musical manager. It was now 
nearly a quarter of three. She would have just time 
to get to the office. But what about Aura? As she 
hesitated on the steps, Victor and her father turned the 
corner- and came up. 


CHAPTEE II. 


ICTOEIA was on the point of showing the two 
notes to Victor and the father and asking 
their advice as to her right course of action. 
But obeying an instant impulse, she suddenly thrust the 
note out of sight under her cloak and going down past 
Victor and the father just as they reached the foot of 
the steps she told them hurriedly that she was going 
for a short walk. 

^^Let me go with you,” said Victor, stopping her. 

"No! no! I prefer to go alone!” replied Victoria 

a little sharply. She walked olf rapidly, leaving 

Victor and her father standing by the steps looking 
after her. 

She was excited out of her usual quiet demeanor. 

Her ambition to secure a good position at good pay, 

especially in a first class concert company, and her 
friendship for Aura, coupled with her promise made 
only that morning, were the opposite desires that 
clashed in her heart and mind as she walked hurriedly 
along. What should she do? If she went to Aura she 
would miss seeing the manager. That would mean the 



26 


JOH^t^ KING’S 


probable loss of the best offer likely to come to her. The 
season was late for new people to get positions. Then 
on the other hand if she went to the manager’s office 
first what would Aura’s aunt say, or what would she her- 
self think, remembering her sacred promise to come at 
any time? All this whirled through her mind as she 
walked the distance of a block. Aura lay partly uncon- 
scious and suffering in the next block. The manager’s 
office was four blocks in the other direction. 

As Victoria reached the comer where she must 
decide one way or the other, she suddenly became con- 
scious of the fact that she did not have her violin with 
her. If she was going to Aura to play for her, she must 
run back home and get her instrument. She turned 
about at the corner, and as she did so her eyes caught 
sight of a new play bill-board near by. It was an 
announcement of a grand concert to be given under 
the management of a great leader. Several of the play- 
ers’ and singers’ names were printed in lai’ge letters. 
Victoria read them and then almost as if walking in her 
sleep she stepped down off the walk and crossed the 
street, going in the direction of the manager’s office. 
She tried to answer the rebuke of her heart by saying, 
'T must secure this position. The business will not 
take long, I know. Then I will fly back and be in time 


QUESTION CLASS. 


27 


to play for Aura. Besides, her aunt is apt to get nerv- 
ous without reason. I am sure I shall be in time to 
do all that Aura wants. And if she knew of the oppor- 
tunity, she would be the first one to say, ^By all means 
secure the place before you come to me.’ ” 

So Victoria quieted her conscience as she drew near 
the office of the manager. She was far from happy, 
however. And as she entered the room she could not 
crowd down a feeling that she had been false to the 
duties of friendship. 

The manager was evidently waiting for her. He 
rose as she entered, and bowed with much civility. 

^^Miss Stanwood?” he inquired and in response to 
her “Yes, sir,” he asked her to be seated and at once 
proceeded to question her as to her musical education, 
the extent of her studies, and the possibility, in case 
they arrived at satisfactory terms, of her going upon 
the road at once with the company. Victoria’s answers 
were apparently satisfactory. She replied briefly and 
exactly. Her mind was full of Aura. She felt as if 
she must hurry to her. The manager then made her a 
proposition. 

“We have not arranged the terms, Miss Stan wood,” 
he said with a smile. “But suppose I should say sev- 
enty-five dollars a week for the season/’ 


28 


JOE^ KING’S 


Victoria' caught her breath. Seventy-five dollars a 
week! Why it was a fortune to begin with. 

The manager went on blandly. “You of course to 
provide for your own traveling expenses out of that 
amount. Our circuit this winter does not include very 
many long distance stands.” 

Victoria bowed and said something about being sat- 
isfied with the terms. 

“By the way,” continued the manager, “I have not 
heard you play. I am taking you on the recommenda- 
tion of some friends of mine who were present at the 
concert last night. Would you mind favoring me here 
with something?” 

“I did not bring my violin,” replied Victoria. 

“I think we can provide for that oversight,” said the 
manager. . 

He went over to a corner of the room and opened a 
small secretary with a glass door and took out a violin 
and how which had evidently been very carefully put 
away. He brought them to Victoria and as he handed 
them to her, he said, 

“There, Miss Stanwood, is one of the few genuine 
Cremonas in this country. That was a gift to me 
direct from Camilla Urso on her last appearance in 
the United States. There are a hundred triumphs 


QUESTION CLASS. 


29 


lingering in the musical memories of that old instru- 
ment.*’ 

Victoria seized the precious instrument with quiver- 
ing delight. For the time being she forgot Aura and 
everything else except the keen pleasure of handling 
such an instrument. She had once had in her hands at 
one of the parlor musicals a Stradivarius loaned her by 
an old musician but she had never seen a Cremona and 
the thought of playing on one brought the fire to her 
cheek and her eye. At first she had shrank at the idea 
of playing alone to one person and that person the 
critical director and manager. But the minute her 
fingers closed over the neck of the famous violin she 
was all musician. What difference did it make to her 
who was present, w^hether one man or a city full? She 
quickly tuned the instrument and after a few prelimi- 
nary chords, as one would stroke a pet horse before 
mounting to take a morning ride over the prairie, she 
swung into Paganini’s ^^Witch Dance,” at one time con- 
sidered to be so impossible to perform technically that 
very few had mastered it successfully. Victoria had 
learned it and she played it with a fire and almost fury 
that gave the manager, as he sat back in his easy chair 
looking and listening sharply, great inward satisfaction. 
When she had finished he applauded her. 


^0 


JOHN KING^S 


'^BravoT^ he cried. Then rose and with old time 
politeness, bowed profoundly. Victoria flushed with pleas- 
ure. It was another triumph for her. Just then a clock 
in the room chimed with a deep echo the half hour. Half 
past three and — Aura! She must he getting away. 

The manager after the first burst of enthusiasm, sat 
down and with business directness wrote out the con- 
tract binding Victoria at the price he had offered, to be- 
come a member of the Company which began its winter’s 
course a week from date. Victoria was given all neces- 
sary details as to rehearsals and dates and places of per- 
formance, and then the manager with the courtesy for 
which he was famous at that time wrote out a check 
for the first week’s salary. His quick eye had detected 
the signs of genteel economy in Victoria. His long ex- 
perience told him the rest. 

All this took time and when Victoria rose to go it 
was almost four o’clock. She started to go out, still 
holding the violin which she had not relinquished after 
playing. She came back into the middle of the room 
with a confused apology and laid the instrument down 
on the table. The manager hesitated curiously, — then 
he said — 

“Miss Stanwood, how would you like to play that 
yiolin this winter?” 


QUESTION CLASS. 


31 


The color rushed to Victoria’s brow. She was all 
musician again. There was no Aura in her thoughts 
any more. 

do not need to say that I would look upon such 
a possibility as a wonderful privilege.” 

^^Well, I never let it go out of my hands before. But 
you deserve the best instrument to be found. Fll tell 
you what Fll do. You may take the violin for the 
season. I’ll risk it with you. Yes, you may take it 
along now. Here is the case.” He took it out of the 
same secretary, and Victoria, placing the precious instru- 
ment in its cover, walked out of the office, almost as 
proud as if she had been given the violin to keep for her 
own. 

The minute the door closed behind her, some drop- 
ping curtains at the farther end of the room parted and 
eight or ten persons came into the office. 

^^What did you think of it?” asked the manager 
briefly. 

The answers were varied. Yet all agreed that the 
manager had secured a prize. Three or four of the 
group, all of whom had been present in the adjoining 
room by request of the manager, to hear Victoria, were 
members of the company. The rest were old musi- 
cians, friends of the manager who had not licard Vic- 


32 


KING’S 


toria the night before. The effect of Victoria’s playing 
was noticeably marked. The manager had secured an 
audience all unknown to her and he congratulated him- 
self over the little device. It was with much satisfac- 
tion that he dwelt upon the coming concert season. 

Victoria almost ran out of the office entry and once 
on the sidewalk she walked as fast as she could without 
running. The excitement of her interview with the man- 
ager had given way now to a growing feeling of remorse. 
It was nearly an hour and a half since she had received 
the note from Aura’s aunt. What should she tell them 
was the reason she had not come at once? Well, she 
would tell the truth, she said to herself. She would not 
add falsehood to her remorse. At any rate she would save 
a little time by not having to go around home to get 
her instrument. She had the Cremona. She would 
play that. 

As she ran up the steps of the house she noticed the 
doctor’s buggy in front. The door was opened for her 
by Mrs. Sutton who had seen her coming. 

At sight of the aunt’s face, Victoria trembled and 
fell back against the door. 

''How is Aura?— Is she”— the word"dead” trembled 
on her lip. Mi^. Sutton shook her head. "No, but the 
attack was worse than we supposed. We do not know 


QUESTION CLASS. 


33 


what to expect. Didn’t you get my note? I was just 
on the point of sending again. Aura has spoken your 
name every few minutes.” 

Victoria covered her face with her hand. What 
could she say? It was no time to make excuses. Mrs. 
Sutton touched her on the shoulder. ^^Come in and see 
her,” she said. And Victoria rose and went into Aura’s 
room. 

The doctor was there with the nurse. As Victoria 
came in and softly walked up to the bed, Aura opened 
her eyes and saw her. A smile passed over her wan face. 
^^0, you have come! I knew you would keep your 
promise to come any time. It did not take you long. 
You must have run. How good you are!” 

All this spoken in whispers showed that the mind of 
the invalid had not been conscious of the lapse of time 
between the writing of the note and Victoria’s appear- 
ance. It all went to Victoria’s heart with a stab. She 
choked and for answer laid her hand on Aura’s. 

^^You brought your violin. You will play to me 
now?” 

Victoria looked at the doctor. ^Tt won’t do any 
harm,” he said. ^‘May result in real good. An hour 
ago would have been better.” 

So Victoria, heavy-hearted, feeling like one who had 


34 


JOHN KING^S 


betrayed the tenderest soul and been false to the highest 
call of duty, took out the Cremona and played. She 
hardly knew what. She tried to play one of the old 
tunes. She thought it must sound very dull and dis- 
cordant. Aura lay very quiet. Victoria played on. 
When she finally stopped, the pale lips parted and 
whispered, ^^So good of you to come as you promised.’’ 

They were the last conscious words spoken by the 
poor sufferer. She grew weaker as night came on, ral- 
lied once or twice as darkness settled over the city, 
opened her eyes once more and smiled near midnight 
and between two and three in the morning she passed 
out of the life that now is, into the life which is to come. 

And Victoria sat through all the agony of the night, 
her sensitive soul hurt and torn by the passion of her 
remorse. She had sent word over to the father and 
Victor and then remained by Aura until the last breath. 
Perhaps the greatest pang she had, lay in the thought 
that she had not been able to confess to Aura the exact 
truth. Her burden was so heavy on her that she sobbed 
out her story to Mrs. Sutton while the two were alone 
for a little while in the other room. The aunt tried to 
comfort her. 

“I am sure, yes, I know Aura would have felt sorry 
if you had not gone. She was so eager for you to sue- 


QUESTION CLASS. 


35 


ceed. She would not have exacted the promise from 
you. You are too sensitive. You wrong yourself.’’ 

^^No, no!” cried Victoria. am sure I do not. 
But I can never forgive myself for the selfishness of my 
act. And it is too late now for Aura to know.” That 
was the heart of her grief. That if she had gone at 
once to her friend without the loss of that precious 
hour, she might have carried with her all her life a 
peaceful conscience at the thought of duty exactly per- 
formed, of promises literally fulfilled. 

She crept home in the early grey of the morning 
and after a little she fell asleep and did not awake until 
noon. But she felt the mark of that night’s experi- 
ence on her as long as she lived. After the simple 
funeral service two days later she had come home and 
gone up into her room and there kneeling down she 
prayed — it was not her custom — and that in itself was 
a new experience. She prayed that she might live to 
be a noble woman to do unselfish deeds and leave a 
memory of kindly acts. The prayer brought her real 
peace. And then as she thoughtfully took up her in- 
strument, she made a promise to the memory of her dear 
friend that she would use her skill and power with the 
violin to bless the world and not for selfish ends. Ah, 
Victoria, you are a woman now! Do you know what 


3G 


KING^S 


that promise means? The world is very large and there 
is great sorrow and need, and fame is a very pleasant 
thing. God help you to be true to your memory and 
the pledge you have made to it. 

When Sunday came she went to John King’s church 
to hear Victor sing. It was the last Sunday she would 
have with him foj many days as she would go out of the 
city that week with the Company. Victor was excited 
but confident. 

have rehearsed with the organist three times,” 
he said to Victoria as they went in together. ^Tt’s a 
magnificent organ and the room is beautifully con- 
structed for singing.” 

Victoria felt a little impatient with Victor^s egotism 
this morning. Since Aura’s death many things ap- 
peared different to her. 

^Tsn’t the room beautifully constructed for preach- 
ing, too? I had an idea that was partly what 
churches were built for. To hear you talk one would 
think the chief end of churches was to listen to tenor 
solos.” 

^^Why, Vi,” said Victor with open-eyed surprise 
^^Wliat’s the matter? Don’t you want me to sing? 
Isn’t that what you are going for this morning? To 
hear me?” 


QUESTION CLASS. 


37 


said Victoria somewhat slowly. “I am going 
to hear John King preach.” 

Victor said nothing and they walked on. Finally 
he burst out, 

^^Well, I call that encouraging! Here is the very 
thing happening that you wanted., Fve got a splendid 
position and you take the heart all out of a fellow — ” 

“Ko! no!” Victoria cried in real distress, laying her 
hand on her brother’s arm. H am sorry. I am proud 
and glad. I did not mean to hurt you, dear. I only 
meant — ” She hesitated and Victor said good naturedly, 
^^you only meant that you preferred J ohn King’s preach- 
ing to my singing. That’s all right. But wait until 
I’ve been singing as long as he has been in the pulpit 
and then see — ” Victor elevated his chin and walked 
on complacently and Victoria smiled at his boundless 
vanity albeit she sighed a little, too, as she seriously 
thought of the approaching separation from him when 
he would be left practically all alone to work out his 
career for himself. 

When they reached the church she spoke a word of 
loving encouragement and sympathy to him and he 
went around to the organist’s door with a smile of satis- 
faction on his eager young face, while she went in and 
was shown to a seat quite well up in front, and as it 


38 


JOHN KING’S 


was very early, she sat for several minutes with the 
great church softly quiet about her, her mind filled with 
Aura, with the promise to her memory, with the com- 
ing week, and its new life to her, with the father and 
with Victor, and then, as the church began rapidly to 
fill up, with his voice and its great possibilities. 

The service began and she was lifted up by it. 
Worship was a part of the service in John King’s 
church. Something at the very beginning struck the 
chord that vibrated with her late experience helpfully 
and went to swell the tide of her better emotions and 
open the view upon her own responsibilities The serv- 
ice grew in helpfulness as it went on. Victor was to 
sing after the sermon. That was John King’s arrange- 
ment. He believed in music as a power to sway hearts 
and make men lead better lives. And he very often 
wanted his spoken truth to go home to his hearers 
winged with harmony. 

One or two points in the sermon came very near to 
Victoria’s thought this particular morning. She was 
not in the habit of attending church. She often went 
out into one of the parks with Victor or else spent the 
day with her music at home or with some musical ac- 
quaintance. The old truths came to her as she sat in 
the church this time with a new and thoughtful mean- 


QUESTION CLASS. 


39 


ing. The text was one that remained with her all 
through her professional career. 

^^Give, and it shall be given unto you.” 

^^The law of give and get,” said the preacher, ^^runs 
all through life everywhere. It is true of the natural 
world, the business world, the spiritual world. Jesus sim- 
ply announced a great and eternal law when he said that 
if a man expects to get he must give. Nature is always 
lavish with its sowing of germ life. I counted one hun- 
dred and fifty seeds, last summer, in the ripened pod 
of one little modest wild plant growing with a hundred 
others on the prairie. By the profusion with which plant 
and animal life reproduces itself, nature responds to the 
great law of giving with a hand that never shuts, in 
astonishing liberality. In honest business, with rare 
exceptions, it is the enterprise and liberality of large 
expenditure that brings back a corresponding return. 
In spiritual things the same law holds good. Men never 
grow better by means of selfish nursing of their virtues 
but always by the giving out of all that is best in them 
for the good of others. Especially is this true in the 
case of some talent or gift greater than ordinary. Ole 
Bull the great violinist once said, Tf I do not practice 
on my instrument for twenty four hours I notice a loss 
in skill, and if I let forty-eight hours go by without 


40 


JOHN KING’S 


practicing my friends notice it, and if I should not 
practice for three days the public would notice it/ It 
was only by giving his time and his strength and his 
energy and his desire to the accomplishment of his pur- 
pose that the great violinist could get the world’s ap- 
plause or gain its affection. If any soul anywhere in 
this audience is hungry for righteousness it will be 
filled. But it must hunger. God does not fill any soul 
with Himself unless that soul has emptied itself, has 
sacrificed, given up its pride and deceit and everything 
that it once held close to itself. Nothing worth having 
is ever gained without sacrifice. There must always he 
a giving up in order to get anything worth having hack 
again. If the farmer would have a crop he must give 
his seed grain. He must throw it into the ground. If 
he sells it or eats it he will have nothing when harvest 
time comes. If the man of business would have, he 
must put his money to use, he must give to trade or to 
ventures of commerce his capital or he will have no 
more than he holds, and if he lives off his capital he will 
grow poorer every day. In the building of character 
the same great law is found. We live and grow by 
what we sacrifice. He that loseth his life shall find it. 
Give and it shall be given unto you. Give kindly 
thoughts and loving deeds to the ' sorrowing and the 


QUESTION CLASS. 


41 


despairing and you will get happiness. Give love in 
return for hate and you will get the peace of God. 
Give your talent to make the world better and you will 
get daily joy in the sweet consciousness of using a God- 
given power in a God-given way. He who never gives 
either of his means or his time, or best of all, himself, to 
lift the world nearer into the light of eternal things, 
never knows the pleasure of getting. For getting is 
always dependent on giving. What can we give this 
morning to Him who gave His life a ransom for many? 
If we have nothing to give but ourselves, that may be 
the most precious gift of all. broken and a contrite 
heart, 0 God, Thou wilt not despise.’ And then once 
given back, into the life will flow the sweet waters of 
the River of God’s peace, worth more than wealth or 
fame or anything that earth can give. ^Give and it 
shall be given unto you.’ This is the divine law of 
compensation. This is the great law of sacrifice, the 
end of which is Paradise and not Calvary.” 

The preacher ceased suddenly as his habit was, and 
Victor rose to sing. His solo was a new rendering of 
music with the old words, 

“I gave my life for thee, 

What hast thou given to Me?” 

Victor had not been in the habit of singing religious 


42 


Jora KING^S 


music. Victoria wondered, as she listened with tears 
in her eyes, where the boy had found the experience 
that made him capable of singing such words in such 
an impressive way. The audience sat stilled and at the 
same time stirred by the pathos of the song. Many of 
those present had attended the concert. Over the con- 
gregation passed the tones clear, thrilling, in persuasion, 
entreaty, tenderness. Into the hearts of many, the 
thought passed through the medium of that wonder- 
ful power of music, ^^What have I given to the great 
Redeemer who gave all?’^ Surely Victor was preaching 
the sermon over again with redoubled power. When 
he ended, the prayer that followed brought the service 
tenderly, quietly, impressively to a close. And the 
great audience, after remaining seated while the choir 
sang softly the amen, rose and went away, talking, as 
they went, about the new tenor and his remarkable 
voice. 

Victoria lingered, waiting for Victor, who at the 
close of the song had stepped back into the music room 
behind the organ. As he came out to join Victoria he 
met John King close by the steps leading down from 
the platform to the floor of the audience room. 

King shook hands and said something to Victor but 
Victoria was too far away to hear. The two finally 


QUESTION CLASS. 


43 


came down the platform steps together and as they 
came down the aisle to where Victoria stood, Victor in- 
troduced her. 

^‘1 am glad to see you two together,’^ said John King 
in his wholesome manner. had the great pleasure of 
hearing you both at the concert last week. Your 
brother tells me you are going away this week. You 
will be able to do great service with such a gift.^’ He 
paused a moment, looking earnestly and thoughtfully 
at the twins as they stood together, then added, ‘^1 am 
very glad that your brother will remain with us. Miss 
Stanwood. I have just been asking him to become a mem- 
ber of our Question Class. It meets at my house every 
Monday night. He has not promised me that he will 
come. I wish you would use your influence with him.^^ 

^‘What is the ^Question Class?’’’ asked Victoria. 

^^It’s for those who come to find out. There! I’ll 
leave it mysterious. Come tomorrow, young man, un- 
less you are too busy helping your sister ofl! on her 
travels. Yes, you will be, that’s so. Say a week from 
tomorrow then. You’ll be lonesome and need some 
friends. Come around.” They were all outside the 
church now. John King went the other way. He 
shook hands as if he meant it, wished Victoria a 
thoughtful good by and with the hope that she would 


44 


JOEl^ KING^S 


make the most of her life gift for the world’s good, went 
away, leaving the twins looking after him and quite 
won to him by his simple unassuming manner. 

^^What was he saying to you, Vic, up on the plat- 
form?” 

^^He was inviting me to join the Question Class,” 
replied Victor. He did not say any more and they 
walked on a little distance in silence. Finally Victor 
broke it by saying, ^^How did the singing sound? Was 
it all right?” 

^^You did beautifully. I could hear the words very 
distinctly. The room is perfect for singing.” 

Victor looked gratified. ^^Yes, I told you so. Do 
you think the people were satisfied?” 

^Wanity of vanities, thy name is Victor,” said Vic- 
toria. ^^Why do you ask? Couldn’t you see that the 
people were under the infiuence? What did John King 
say? Did he compliment you?” 

^^Ko,” said Victor shortly. ^^He never said a word. 
I thought he was going to but he didn’t. He’s queer 
sometimes, don’t you think?” 

Victoria laughed. Then she sighed. At that mo- 
ment they overtook a group of people, among them two 
young women acquaintances and the latter at once 
began to praise Victor. 


QUESTION CLASS. 


45 


^^0, Mr. Stanwood, it was simply lovely. We shall 
go to John King’s church every Sunday now.” 

^^Will you?” Victor was at once basking in the 
sunshine of the adoration he hungered for. He lingered 
with the group until Victoria impatiently took his arm 
and drew him on. 

^^Come, Victor,” she said when out of ear shot. 
^^Don’t let those girls make a fool of you. I have no 
patience with their gabble.” 

Victor looked a little annoyed. Then he laughed. 
^^Well, Vi, they can’t make a fool of me if I am one 
already, can they? And that’s what you think, I 
know.” 

Victoria protested and by the time they reached 
home they were at peace with each other and Victor 
was complacently humming over the morning solo as he 
went up to his room. 

The week that followed was a busy one for Victoria. 
She had to prepare for her departure. It was a serious 
time in her life. She dreaded the- thought of leaving 
Victor and the father alone. A competent servant had 
to be secured. Then she charged Victor with a hun- 
dred commands for the care of everything. She had 
never left her father before. That gave her the greatest 
anxiety. The future was full of possibilities for her and 


46 


JOm KING’S 


she did not lack courage, but what Victor would do, how 
he would assume the duties of manhood fast confront- 
ing him, was an unknown factor in the problem. She 
had all this to think about as she made her preparations. 
The life she was about to enter was full of unknown 
things. She felt equal to the professional part of it 
and when the day of her departure arrived she bade 
good by to the father bravely, only weeping a little after 
she turned away from him. Victor went to the station 
with her. 

^^After all, dear Vic, we shall not be so very far 
away. Our longest run is only 500 miles. And we 
play tomorrow in D. you know. You won’t forget all 
my instructions, wdll you? And accept John King’s in- 
vitation for Monday. I want you to know him. It 
will be worth everything to have such a man’s friend- 
ship. And above all, don’t, don’t go and fall in love 
with those Caxton girls you were talking with Sunday.” 

^^You mean the ones that talked what you called 
^gabble?’ ” 

^^Yes, I’m glad to see you remember so well. Be a 
good boy now, won’t you? Eemember what we have at 
stake, to rise above our — 

Victor understood Victoria meant the disgrace of 
the father’s condition. He grew unusually thoughtful. 


QUESTION CLASS, 


47 


When he kissed Victoria good by, the tears came. He 
was a boy yet. She saw him turn as the train rolled 
out of the station and in his tear-hlinded condition he 
stumbled into a man on the platform who knocked off 
his hat and the last glimpse Victoria caught of the 
brother as she looked back out of the window was a 
picture of him carefully brushing the dust from his 
hat with the anxiety for outside adornment that was 
peculiar to him in such a marked degree. And then 
the train carried her off into her new world. And Vic- 
tor went home to face his new existence. And for both 
of them the days to come opened up and unrolled for 
them the life that now Is, with a rapidity and reality 
that they could not understand at the time because 
much of it all was so new, so serious, and so profound 
with meaning. 


CHAPTEE III. 



HE week that followed Victoria’s departure 
passed very dolefully for Victor. The twins 
had never been separated before and he did 
not know what to do without her. He had 

never been able, at least he always believed 
he never had been able, to endure with any 
patience his father’s ways and yet he had never been 
undutiful or lacking in love towards him. With Vic- 
toria gone it was different. Victor busied himself with 
his music as much as possible. When Sunday came he 
went to the church and sang. There was an immense 
congregation. He was nervous and impatient all 
through the sermon which seemed to him longer than 
usual. Several times he went back into the music room 
behind the organ. There was a curtain behind the pul- 
pit arranged so that a person could come in and out of 
the music room unperceived by the congregation. Vic- 
tor did not care anything for the service except his own 
part in it. When at last the sermon closed and the 
organist began the prelude to his song he came out from 
the shadow of the curtain. His appearance almost pro- 


JOHy KING^S QUESTION CLASS. 


49 


Yoked applause. If it had been anywhere except in 
church and J ohn King’s church at that, it seems almost 
as if he would have been cheered. His pale, finely- 
moulded face, the head covered with its curly black 
hair, the boyish yet musically mature countenance pro- 
duced the impression of genius on the audience. And 
Victor’s voice! It certainly was remarkable. John 
King sat with bowed head, thrilled with its tone, saying 
to himself, ^^What a power!” After the service was over 
he saw Victor and reminded him of the Monday night 
Question Class. 

‘^Come around and join us for the evening, at any 
rate.” 

^^I don’t know,” Victor hesitated. He was shy about 
going out or meeting new people. But he was lone- 
some and he remembered Victoria’s parting words. So 
he promised to come and the next evening when he 
rang the bell at Plane Street he was ushered into a 
room half full of young men and women to whom John 
King began to introduce him. 

‘This is Eichard Bruce, Mr. Stanwood. And here 
is Mr. Howard. Tom and Dick, you give Stanwood a 
chance to know some of the class. I have a little work 
to do in my study while the rest are coming in. Excuse 
me for a few minutes.” 


50 


JOHN HINGES 


So Tom took Victor in hand and introduced him to 
several young men and women in a very informal off- 
hand manner. Every one was talking and laughing 
socially and Tom soon sat down with Victor in a comer 
by a table oi portraits and chatted with him in his gos- 
sipy way. 

'Tou’re the new tenor at John King’s church, aren’t 
you?” 

Victor nodded pleasantly. 

heard you at the concert two weeks ago. It’s a 
wonderful voice you have. I’d give my other hand al- 
most to be able to sing like that.” Victor noticed then 
that Tom’s right hand was gone. He didn’t know 
whether he ought to say anything about it but Tom 
frankly spoke of it. 

^^You see I lost this hand three years ago in a little 
scrimmage. Not foot ball but while engaged in the 
gentle business of teaching a Kindergarten school in 
one of John King’s pet slums near Clark street. Dick 
was with me that night. Bruce; you know him?” 

'^Yes, I’ve heard of him. He has written several 
books, hasn’t he? I remember seeing one of his serials 
in the ^Monthly Visitor.’ ” Victor read very little but 
he had seen that particular magazine. 

‘^Yes,” replied Tom. ‘^Dick is a rising author. It’s 


QUESTION CLASS. 


51 


slow work though. And there’s no money in it. Now 
I suppose music is more — more remunerative, isn’t it?” 
inquired Tom, with his old reporter’s instinct for 
news. 

Victor smiled. He took to Tom already because 
Tom appeared inclined to pump him in regard to his 
musical talent. And he had not the least reserve about 
telling how much he received for singing. 

get fifteen dollars a Sunday now. I expect more 
next month.” 

Tom looked at him seriously and suddenly changed 
the conversation. 

^‘You haven’t been here before, have you?” 

^^No. I do not even know what it is I have come 
to.” 

^^You’ll find out pretty soon. John King will be 
down in a few moments. Don’t you know any one 
here?” 

^There’s Miss Lester. I have met her at musicals. 
I don’t see any one else. Who is the girl talking with 
Mr. Bruce?” 

^‘That’s Miss Kenneth. She’s an artist. She illus- 
trates magazine stories.” 

''Who is the young lady just beyond her, by the 
piano?” 


52 


JOHN KING’S 


‘^That’s one of John King’s cousins from the east, 
Mary King. She is studying medicine, I believe. That 
other girl just coming towards her is Miss Fergus. You 
were introduced to her.” 

^^What is' she? Every one here seems to be- 
long to some art or profession,” said Victor with a 
smile. 

‘^Oh, Miss Fergus? She is just a society girl. She 
hasn’t any object in life except to see how much fun 
she can get out of it.” 

Tom pulled up short and a curious look came on his 
face. He bit his lips and laying his hand on VictoFs 
arm he said, “I take that back. It was an ungracious 
thing to say. I was guilty of judging. I had no right 
to do it. I haven’t been a Christian very long and the 
old Adam runs my tongue a good deal. I hope you 
won’t remember my remark.” 

Victor looked and felt embarrassed. He did not 
know what to say. He was not a Christian himself 
and was not in the habit of hearing anything religious 
spoken in such a frank open way. Before he could say 
anything. Miss Fergus came across the room and straight 
up to Tom. 

“Mr. Howard, you have been saying something about 
me, now honor bright, isn’t that so?” 


QUESTION CLASS. 


53 


Victor expected Tom to deny it. To his astonish- 
ment Tom replied, 

^^Yes, I’m sorry to say I did make a remark about 
you that I had to apologize for to Mr. Stanwood here. 
You have met him?” 

^^Yes, but you don’t tell what the remark was.” 

Again Victor expected Tom to say something differ- 
ent but Tom replied quietly, said that you were with- 
out any object in life except to see how much fun you 
could get out of it, but I had no right to say it and I 
apologize to you. Miss Fergus, same as I did to Mr. 
Stanwood.” 

“You don’t need to apologize; it’s the truth, isn’t 
it?” Miss Fergus laughed and Victor could not detect 
any sign of displeasure or resentment. 

“It’s a great pity if it is true,” said Tom seriously. 

“Do you think so?” asked Miss Fergus, laughing 
again. 

“I don’t see how any person can live in these times 
without — ” 

“Well, without what?” asked Miss Fergus good 
naturedly, as Tom hesitated for the right phrase. 

“Why, without having a larger object in life than 
going to parties and having a good time. That’s what 
so many girls seem to live for. They don’t even deny 


54 


JOHN KING^S 


themselves or do anything that gives them any trouble 
for the sahe of the poor or the sick or the sinful/^ 

^^Do you know a good many girls of that kind?” 
Miss Fergus put the question with a quick glance at 
Victor. to see if he was listening. Victor was listening 
carefully. 

‘^No,” replied Tom with a laugh. ^‘1 don’t know 
very many. It’s what I hear and see that makes me 
judge. But there! I ought not to judge on such 
superficial evidence. I don’t want to get into a 
discussion. Miss Fergus, you accept my apology, don’t 
you?” 

will take it under consideration. Here comes 
John King. He has an object in life anyway. But 
we can’t all be like him.” 

^‘No danger,” muttered Tom as Miss Fergus moved 
over to another part of the room. If there was any- 
thing that Tom scorned it was a person with nothing 
particular in the world to do except dress and have a 
good time. Victor remembered the little scene long 
afterwards when other events gave it larger meaning. 

As the preacher came into the room he called out 
good humoredly, but strongly. ^^Eight o’clock. Time 
for business.” 

The laugh and chatter ceased and everyone sat 


QUESTION CLASS. 


55 


down. John King produced a box which he opened 
and took out one at a time slips of paper with questions 
written on them. 

The plan of the Question Class was something like 
this. At each meeting the members of the class handed 
in written questions which were answered at the next 
meeting a week later. The largest liberty was granted 
in the matter of questions. All sorts of subjects were 
taken up. Questions on politics, society, history, lan- 
guage, literature, science, local affairs, moral perplexi- 
ties, in short, anything of real interest in human life 
especially when the thing in question was conduct or 
action for right or wrong. Most of the class were older 
than Victor. The questions were those which young 
men and women from nineteen to twenty-four might 
easily ask. The class had been started by John King 
as an experiment. He found the interest in it grew as 
years went on and the value of it was very great to cer- 
tain minds. There were a few simple rules regulating 
the details of the class. Each member was allowed to ask 
but one question a week. That must be written out and 
left at John King’s until the next meeting. This gave 
him an opportunity to look them over. The writer of each 
question signed his or her name but it was very seldom 
revealed by the preacher when the answer was given. 


56 


JOUy KING’S 


The list of questions this evening covered a wide 
range of subjects. Some were literary, some scientific, 
one or two political, but it was noticeable that most of 
them were related to conduct. After all, the class had 
learned that the most real help came to them along that 
line. We will listen with Victor to some of the ques- 
tions and answers as John King takes them out of the 
box and reads. He sat down, talking informally as at a 
gathering where all were entirely at home for mutual 
help. 

Ts it possible to be equally good at all times and in 
all places?’ I mean by my question this. Is it meant 
that we shall be in the same state of mind while buying 
and selling goods or carrying on the details of a profes- 
sion as while offering a prayer or teaching a Sunday 
School class?” 

John King looked around and smiled in the direc- 
tion of the author of the question and the Class came 
very near guessing who he was, although there were half 
a dozen members who might have asked it. 

^^There is a verse in the New Testament that covers 
the answer to this question. It is this; ^Whether there- 
fore ye eat or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the 
glory of God.’ That is very plain. That covers buy- 
ing and selling and trades and professions and politics 


QUESTION CLASS. 


57 


and home life and society and everything. It is no 
doubt harder to feel good and devout and prayerful in 
the world rubbing up against sinful people and all sorts 
of dishonesty and hypocrisy than while sitting in a 
prayer meeting, in a church service, or teaching a Sun- 
day School class. But because a thing is hard is no 
sign that it cannot be done and no excuse why it should 
not be done. The growth of character is a conflict. If 
it was all easy and no fight at all there would be no 
such thing as overcoming. And the Bible has a great 
deal to say about overcoming. This question is one 
which at the present time raises a great deal of discus- 
sion. There are some men who say religion has no 
place in politics, that you cannot mix business and re- 
ligion, that the only way to do is to let religion work in 
its place and politics and business work in their place. 
Then there is no trouble and everything goes along 
lovely. Eemember that is what the politicians and the 
men of the world want. They do not want the moral 
element introduced into their selfish schemes for mak- 
ing money or hating their enemy or rising to power 
over the ruins of the weaker. But this is the very 
essence af Christianity, that it stamps every act and 
every profession and every detail of government with 
the command ^Do all to the glory of God.’ 


58 


JOHN KING^S 


^^Yes, I answer this question by saying it is possible 
to be equally good at all times, in all places, in all pro- 
fessions that are honest, in all trades that are honorable. 
And it is the teaching of Christ that we should be doing 
everything to His glory whether we teach a Sunday 
School class or conduct a lawsuit, collect a bill or cook 
a dinner or preach a sermon or pray by the side of the 
dying or learn a hundred lines of Virgil or Ovid. 
Whatsoever we do, we are to do all to the glory of God. 
It will require a great deal of prayer and talking with 
God and study of His truth and keeping very close to 
the divine all the time. Indeed that is the only way 
the higher life can be lived. Don’t forget the words of 
Christ, Hn the world ye shall have tribulation, but be 
of good cheer I have overcome the world.’ And 
as He overcame, so can we, and glorify the Father 
in heaven with every breath we draw, with every 
deed we do.” 

Question. ^^I have been praying for several weeks 
for a certain thing. It has not been given me. What 
shall I do? Stop praying because I have not 
received what I pray for, or keep on asking until I 
get it?” 

'That depends on what the thing is. And also on 
what you want it for. If you had stated what it was — ” 


QUESTION CLASS. 


59 


A voice from a girl in the corner of the room at John 
King’s left called out, ^^It’s a piano!” There was a 
laugh hut John King sat with unmoved face as he 
turned in the direction of the speaker who in her ab- 
sorption with her thought had betrayed the authorship 
of the question. She was one of the youngest persons 
in the class and one of the poorest. 

'^Grace,” said John King, ^^How long have you been 
praying for a piano?” 

About two months. I’ve wanted one for two years 
but never prayed for one until lately.” 

^'How do you pray? I mean what words do you 
use?” 

^^Why, I say every night and every morning ^Dear 
Lord, I want a piano the worst kind. Won’t you put it 
into the heart of some one to give me one or else help 
me to make enough money to buy one?’ ” 

The Class laughed again but John King’s face was 
sober. 

^Tf some one should give you a piano, would you 
consider that God had answered your prayer?” 

^^Of course. But I haven’t the least idea that any 
one will.” 

This time John King smiled a little. ^^Grace, what 
would you do with a piano if you did get one?” 


60 


JOUy KING^S 


Grace opened her eyes at the simple question. 

''Why, play on it, of course. Fm just aching for a 
chance to catch up with the girls who take music at the 
Conservatory. But I can’t do a thing without practice 
and I can’t get anything to play on but old Mrs. Wil- 
son’s tin pan of an instrument that was made over a 
hundred years ago. And there are girls in the Con- 
servatory who have every chance in the world with all 
the best instruments and they don’t seem to care any- 
thing about the privilege.” Poor Grace was pouring 
out her trouble regardless of the class, some of whom 
laughed while others felt sorry for the frank impulsive 
confession of poverty. 

John King was silent a minute. Then he said 
slowly; 

"You have a perfect right to pray for the piano if 
you pray in the right spirit. But you have no right to 
think God does not hear you or care for your happi- 
ness if you don’t get a piano. Perhaps there are other 
things more necessary for you than a piano. If you 
want it simply to become a better player than other 
girls, or to grow proud over your musical ability it 
would be a mercy if you never had your prayer answered 
literally. I should answer your question by saying. 
No, don’t stop praying, but ask yourself are you praying 


QUESTION CLASS. 


61 


aright? In the right spirit. There is no promise in 
God’s word that we shall get everything we ask for no 
matter how we ask for it. That is not the definition 
of prayer. A great many people think prayer is ask- 
ing God for anything. That is not the teaching about 
prayer at all. We must never forget that every true 
prayer contains this sentence; ^Thy will be done.’ 
Without that spirit of loving surrender to the will of 
our heavenly Father all our petitions to Him are 
powerless. True prayer is always ^Thy will be done.’ ” 
Question. — have a boy in my Sunday School Class 
who I have lately discovered is beginning to read trashy 
books and stories. I have tried to get him interested 
in Scott and Cooper and Trowbridge. But he does 
not seem to care for any of those works. How can I 
get him to read good books?” 

^^Make him a present of a set of Trowbridge’s 
stories for boys. Or make him subscriber for a year 
to some good magazine like St. Nicholas or Harper’s 
Young People. Unless the boy is thoroughly bad in 
heart he will read what you give him in that way. Have 
a talk with the boy’s mother and father. It is aston- 
ishing how some fathers neglect their boys in matters 
like these. The taste for reading which the boy ac- 
quires may determine his whole after life. Yet I have 


62 


JOHN KING’S 


known parents who let their boys read anything that 
came into the house, even the political daily papers,” 
John King added with a glance at Tom. ^^There is 
this about it. Always love the boy and believe in get- 
ting hold of him. A good many boys go through a fit 
of reading dime novels and bloody stories about Indians 
and pirates and howling savages and burglars and de- 
tectives and all that tribe. It is a sort of boys’ story- 
book-disease like measles and croup and chicken pox. 
I had it myself when I was a boy. Large doses of 
Scott and Dickens and Cooper and Victor Hugo cured 
me. Pray for your boy. Talk with him about good 
heroes of the world. Oh, there are a thousand things 
to do to win him to the better things of life and then 
ask God for wisdom to do the best thing yourself.” 

Question. — ^^How can a person best overcome the 
habit of saying unkind things of other people?” 

^^By not saying them. That is one way. Another 
way would be to apologize every time to the person who 
was hurt by the unkind saying. Very many people 
try to overcome some bad habit without thinking of the 
other people who are being hurt by it. They keep 
thinking all the time about themselves and how they 
can correct the habit all by themselves. The thought 
pf the great harm done to others by evil habits ought 


QUEST WN ELA8S. 


63 


to act as a powerful impulse to correct bad habits. I 
knew a man who once cured himself of the habit of 
swearing by asking a man who worked in the same 
carpenter shop with him to hit him a smart blow over 
the knuckles with a foot ruler every time he spoke a 
hasty oath. At first there was almost a riot in the 
shop, for the man was mad at being hit, but his com- 
panion always shouted, ^You made me promise to do it.’ 
And it cured him in time. What you need, however, 
is more divine help: You can’t cure yourself of any 
fixed evil habit by your human power alone. What is 
the use of shutting God out any way, when you might 
just as well have his help in everything?” 

Question. — ^^What would you advise a young man 
to do who feels himself falling in love with a nice girl 
and yet knows that it will be several years before he 
will be able financially to have a home of his own?” 

There was a sensation all through the class as John 
King read this very frankly worded question and a little 
laugh which ceased the minute John King began to 
speak. 

^Tailing in love, young people, is just as much a 
part of human life as learning to talk or coming of age. 
It has always been so and will continue to be. T can't 
preach on this to-night; the subject is too large to dis- 


64 


70OT KING^S 


CUSS briefly, but I will say this in answer. It is ea^y to 
give advice, but there is no form of advice that is the 
same for all young men who feel themselves falling in 
love except this: if it is ever important that you do and 
be everything that is noble and true and manly and 
Christian it is when you begin to feel attached to some 
^nice girl,’ as our friend in his question calls her. Kegu- 
late your conduct at such a time, young man, by the 
highest, most thoughtful, most exalted rule of action. 
Perhaps your circumstances are such that you have no 
right to fall in love. There is also a sentiment, fool- 
ishly weak and sometimes wicked, yielding to passion, 
that deserves the righteous scorn and indignation of 
every man who has a particle of manhood in him. Some 
young men fall in love very easily and there is nothing 
very sacred in it to them. But let me tell you, dear 
young people, when you meet the ^nice girT as the ques- 
tion puts it, who is all the world to you, for whom you 
feel able to do or be anything great, it will mean all the 
world to your happiness and manhood all through life 
if you are able to pray with one noble soul I once knew, 
— ^Gracious God, consecrate this great experience to me 
that from this mighty happiness I may become a nobler 
man, a better child of thine, a greater servant of the 
race/ 


QUESTION CLASS. 


65 


is hard for me to answer such a question as this. 
But there are always certain rules of conduct which 
never change. We never ought to place ourselves or 
others in positions where pain and sorrow and disap- 
pointment will result from a failure to check desires 
or emotions which under different circumstances would 
be entirely right and proper. In the light of truth and 
honor and nobility and everything else that is good, 
every young man must act in this, as in every other im- 
portant experience of life and in this special experience, 
with even more than usual thoughtfulness and search 
for the divine wisdom. I have known happy mar- 
riages result after very brief engagements. There is no 
cast iron rule. There is only the eternal law of right- 
eousness in all of life. It is because love and the period 
of love between young men and women has too often 
been held and treated lightly and jestingly, and without 
seriousness as a beautifully sacred event, that so much 
misery has come from the imitation of true love. True 
love always results in happiness. For it is always the 
reflection of the divine being. For God Himself Is 
love. That is the best definition we have of Deity. 

Question. — ^^Do you think there is any harm in a 
young man smoking a good cigarette?’^ 
never heard of a good cigarette.” 


66 


JOHN KING'S 


Question. — ^‘What are the worst faults in the young 
men of this age?” 

^^Now that,” said John King with a twinkle of his 
eyes, ^hs evidently a one sided question and I do not 
think it is fair to answer it and not say anything 
about the faults of young women. So we will pass 
it by.” 

Question. — ^^What does the world need to-day more 
than anything else?” 

^^Kow here is a good one to close with to-night. The 
world needs to-day more than anything else, men and 
women who love truth and hate falsehood. Young men 
and women who have a purpose in life and are not 
ashamed of it. Men and women who live so that the 
generation that comes after may bless and not curse, 
honor and not despise. What the world needs in this 
age is goodness that has an every-day market value to 
it. Yes, the world may seem to need very many things, 
but the first and greatest is manhood and womanhood 
that is pure and unselfish and large-hearted. Free 
from narrow prejudice and miserable hypocrisy. Ablaze 
with enthusiasm for the right, indignant with virtue at 
the wrong. Such manhood and womanhood as grows 
up out of knowledge of God and faith in the unseen and 
eternal things of God, faith in mother’s prayers and in 


QUESTION CLASS. 


67 


all holy desires and noble aspirations to bless the world. 
That’s what the old w^orld needs to-day more than any- 
thing else.” 

John King closed suddenly, and offered a short 
prayer as he sat in the hush that followed, and after a 
brief social time the class went away. 

As Tom stood by the door, he overheard Miss Fer- 
gus asking Grace to come over and play her piano any 
time she wanted to. He did not hear Grace’s reply but 
thought from Miss Fergus’ manner that her offer had 
not been accepted. Ht was thoughtful in her to make 
the offer any way,” Tom said to himself and he again 
took himself to task for his snap judgment of people’s 
characters. 

Victor went home very little impressed by anything 
he had heard. He enjoyed the admiration he had re- 
ceived from those who had heard him sing, but noth- 
ing had been said or done that interested him very 
much. The truth was he did not care much for other 
people. He lived in his music. The brief quarter of 
an hour when he stood up in the church and sang, was 
the one great event of the entire week now. A month 
went by and he did not go to J ohn King’s house again. 
King invited him heartily the first week after he failed 
to appear and then did not ask him again. Victor felt 


68 


JOi/.V KIXG^S 


hurt by his silence, although he had purposely stayed 
away. He also felt a strange sort of anger against King 
because he had never said a word in compliment of his 
singing. It seemed to him that there lay behind the 
silence on the part of the preacher, a reason that he did 
not want Victor to know. He fretted over it a good 
deal, not knowing anything of John King^s conception 
of every part of the church service to glorify God and 
humble man. To Victor’s mind the song service was 
the occasion for all the glorification' he could get out of 
it. He lived on the thought of the emotion his voice 
could provoke in the people. 

Meanwhile as days went by he had heard from Vic- 
toria. Not often, for she was living too intense and 
broken a life to write much. One of her letters about 
a month after her departure throws light on her career 
at that time. 

Dear Vic: 

Played last night in M. to a great audience. Very enthusias- 
tic and I was recalled three times. It was very late when we 
closed. If it was not for my perfect health I could not endure 
such a life as I have had to live these last three weeks. We 
travel of course very much at night and I am broken of my 
rest. The seventy-five dollars is pretty well eaten into, what 
with hotels and travel and dress and all. I send you thirty-five 
dollars. Father said something in his last letter about the added 
expenses since I left. I hope, dear Vic, you will manage matters 
for him in a thoughtful, business-like way. You know he has no 
idea of the value of money. I do enjoy my life very much, after 
all. The public is kind and I have made friends with most of the 


QUESTION CLASS. 


69 


company. Madam Rene and myself are quite congenial to each 
other. There are many little annoyances of course, and some* 
times I grow homesick for you and the old life. There is much 
that is seemingly artificial in this strange life. I think of you 
as making great progress with your voice. I hope you are get- 
ting a great deal from John King’s friendship. Don’t forget to 
write to me all about the Question Class. 

Your loving sister, Victoria. 

A month after the date of this letter Victoria was 
surprised to receive from Victor a short letter which 
read as follows: 

Dear Vi: 

I write to tell you that father has been ill again for a week. 
Nothing dangerous. But it has been an expensive illness and 
what with one thing and another, money has run short. The $35 
was very acceptable. If you could send me a little more very 
soon it would be a great help. I think if the church people do 
not offer me more pay at the end of my contract I shall leave. 
I have had an offer from the chorister of the Cathedral at St. 
Mark’s Ave., and I am considering it. Don’t worry about father. 
If you could send the money soon it would be a great help. Don’t 
wmrk too hard and get sick. Lovingly, Victor. 

There were several things in this letter that puzzled 
Victoria. How an illness of a week could be very ex- 
pensive she did not see. And she did not realize how 
Victor could use so much money for household ex- 
penses. He was getting fifteen dollars a week. The 
father was earning eight or ten dollars more and she 
had sent on nearly seventy-five dollars since she left 
home. They had always lived simply and she could 
not account for the increased expenditure except by 
supposing that Victor in his vanity of appearance had 


70 


JOra KTNG^S 


gone to a great outlay in the matter of clothes and es- 
pecially of neckties, of which even in the old times he 
would get an unheard of quantity. She sighed as she 
thought of the money and then she reproached herself 
for being selfish and lovingly thought of A^ictor 
with much pride at his success. He had sent 
her some papers containing favorable notices of his 
singing and she had treasured them among her few 
letters. 

She replied to his letter the next day, sending him 
every cent she could spare from her immediate needs 
and cautioning him lovingly about unnecessary expendi- 
ture. 

Another month went by. And the last Sunday of 
Victor^s engagement at John King’s church was near at 
hand. The musical committee had tried to make ar- 
rangements with him to continue. He had asked for 
time to consider and had promised to give an answer on 
Saturday of that week. In the afternoon, one of the 
committee called by arrangement but Victor was not in 
and had not left any word. He did not appear all the 
afternoon and by ten o’clock at night had not come 
back to the house. 

It was a little after 9 o’clock that same evening that 
Tom Howard, walking past John King’s house, saw a 


QUESTION CLASS. 


71 


light burning up in the pastor’s study. He walked past 
the house and slowly came back, hesitated a moment 
at the foot of the steps, then went up and rang the bell 
and inquired of the servant if he could see John King 
a few minutes. 

The preacher heard his voice and came to the top of 
the landing. 

^^Come up, Tom, come up. Fve got a plate of apples 
and some hickory nuts and we’ll sit by the fire and dis- 
cuss everything but politics.” 

Tom came up and sat down in front of the open 
grate fire but refused the proffered refreshment. 

^^What’s the matter, Tom? Been stumbling over 
your tongue some more?” 

^^No,” replied Tom with a faint smile. ^^This isn’t 
my trouble, and I don’t know as I ought to bring it to 
you. You have your share of burden bearing.” 

^^Always room for one more. What is it, Tom?” 

“Well, I feel as if you ought to know it. I w^as 
going by one of the Clark Street gambling house dens 
to-night and I saw young Victor Stanwood going in. 
Some one ought to know. His sister’s out on the road 
with Minett’s Company. I couldn’t think of any one 
except you — and — ” 

Tom paused in great distress at the change that 


72 


JOEHJ KING’S QUESTION CLASS. 


came over King’s face and manner. He asked a few ques- 
tions in a low voice and after a little, Tom went down. 

When he was gone, John King kneeled down and 
buried his head in the couch that stood in front of the 
fire. He knelt there until his lamp went out and the 
fire died down to a quiet bed of coals. When the clock 
in the church steeple struck twelve he was still there 
in the same position. 

At the moment J ohn King kneeled in his study with 
the burden of another soul on his heart, bearing it up 
before the great loving Father, asking for wisdom to 
act aright for its salvation, at that very moment in 
another city two hundred miles away, a slight deter- 
mined figure came upon the stage and faced an im- 
mense audience of people as she raised her violin and 
drew the bow across it to play Carlovini’s Angel’s 
Prayer. As she touched the strings with the first move- 
ment of the music so pianissimo, so ecstatically, the 
people sat hushed in breathless quiet while a feeling of 
strange sadness stole into their hearts. They had never 
heard the violin played like that before. It was almost 
as if the sweet gentle rush of the angel’s wings had been 
heard, as he folded them and knelt to pray the prayer 
of one who jdeads with tears for eternal life, not for 
himself, but for a poor, lost, sinning human soul. 


CHAPTEE IV. 



pNDAY morning dawned on the city with the 
promise of a perfect day. Never had John 
King’s church seemed more crowded at a 
forenoon service. The news of the famous tenor voice 
which had been heard now for several weeks had 
reached people in the suburbs and the church was filled 
with strangers. The galleries overflowed. There was 
an eager air among the new comers. 

John King came into the pulpit looking worn and 
sad. His night had been a night of vigil and the hours 
had been full of groaning anguish for sinful souls and 
especially for the one young soul who in a few minutes 
would be singing so wonderfully. That was a profes- 
sional mystery to J ohn King, that one who did not feel 
the glory of the redeemed could move the hearts of 
others by his rendering of words in music that were 
not true to his own inner life. 

It was natural that the preacher’s sermon this morn- 
ing should be from the text ^Tor the Son of Man came 
to seek and to save that which was lost.” John King’s 
customary fiery eloquence was subdued. He spoke 



74 


JOHN KlNG^S 


slower, with even more feeling than usual. But when 
he finished and sat with bowed head during the singing 
of the solo, very few persons in the church guessed that 
his heart was groaning for the singer that he might be 
saved. 

How strange it all seemed to John King that morn- 
ing! What wonderful power the boy’s voice had! 
Whether Victor knew what the subject of the sermon 
would be he could not tell. But there he stood singing, 
“There were ninety and nine — ” 

Never had he sung with more pathos, more feeling. 
People who had sat cold and unmoved during the ser- 
mon felt the tears start and the heart thrill at the sim- 
ple words of the song. The preacher writhed inwardly 
as he listened. The contest was sharp in him as to his 
duty. He prayed for help and when the service was 
over he went back into the music room. 

Victor was there drawing on his gloves just getting 
ready to go out. 

“Won’t you wait a few moments, Stanwood? I 
want to see you.” 

Victor sat down wondering if John King was going 
to tell him how much he had enjoyed his singing. 

“You must not think, my dear fellow,” began John 
King with a hearty loving manner, “that I am inter- 


QUESTION GLASS. 


75 


fering with what is not my business, in speaking to 
yon plainly about what has come to my knowledge. I 
am nearly twice as old as you are and have seen a good 
deal of the world, both its good and evil. I trust you 
will be as frank with me as I am witti you for the sake 
of your sister, and — your profession.” The preacher 
added the last word slowly. Victor sat with his eyes 
on the carpet. He did not reply nor look up. John 
King took it for a bad sign, but went on. 

^Ts it true, my dear Stanwood, that you have re- 
cently been in the habit of frequenting the gambling 
places on Clark street, or was last Saturday your first 
visit to them?” 

Victor turned deadly pale. His hands trembled. 
His lips quivered. Then a fiush of anger came over his 
face. He lifted his eyes, looked King defiantly in the 
face and said, 

^^What business is that of yours?” 

^^Only the business of one who cannot endure to see 
such a life as yours lost in those hells. Think of your 
sister. Think of what you have at stake in using such 
a power as you possess to move humanity. You cannot 
afford to throw all this away in such a horrible man- 
ner. The gambling passion is death to all true 
life.” 


76 


JOBt^ KING^S 


King rose and went over and put his hand on Vic- 
tor's shoulder. 

hoy, you have only had a taste of it yet. Choose 
to give it up now. Your career will be ruined, your sis- 
ter’s heart will be broken, there will be nothing for 
you in the future but sorrow and disgrace and shame 
if you let the gambling passion become your master.” 

can manage my own affairs. You needn’t preach 
to me. To hear you talk one would think I was a 
drunken fool incapable of governing myself.” 

J ohn King was silent now. His calm look gave way 
for an instant to one of indignation. That passed at 
once and nothing but sorrowful compassion looked out 
of his great dark eyes. He would not give up this soul 
yet. 

Victor had started towards the door. 

^‘^Stanwood,” the word came clear and steady while 
John King stood still without a motion to detain him. 
^^Are you going to sing for us any more?” 

^^You would not care to have a professional gambler 
sing in your church,” said Victor with a sneer. 

Hf you will sing for us, I will use my influence with 
the music committee to have your pay increased. I 
understand they have not made terms with you yet 
after this morning.” 


QUEST 101^ CLASS. 


7 


Victor looked at John King with some surprise. 
Then he bit his lips and replied, 

“I have made arrangements to sing hereafter at the 
Cathedral on St. Mark’s Avenue. I don’t care to sing 
any more where I am watched by spies.” 

There was a pause. Then John King said simply, 
^^The time may come, Stanwood, when you will need a 
friend. When that time comes, if you will remember 
this occasion and my reasons for talking to you as I 
have this morning, and come to me for any help I can 
give you, it will be given as freely as the love I have 
for you this very moment. In Christ’s name, dear soul, 
I pray you may be saved.” 

There was a second of indecision in Victor’s man- 
ner as John King spoke, which revealed the inward 
conflict. Then without a word he turned and went 
away, leaving the preacher with bowed head and heavy 
heart praying for him. 

It would be unaccountable to explain Victor’s be- 
haviour on this occasion without knowing the inner 
history of his experience since the night of the memor- 
able concert. The great moving motive that urged 
him on was his all-absorbing vanity. That vanity, 
however, was the real means of bringing him into the 
reach of the gambling passion. His great extrava- 


78 


JOF.Y KING^S 


gances were clothes and jewelry. The very first money 
that came into his hands from his Sunday singing he 
spent in the purchase of an opal ring that cost twenty- 
five dollars. He went to a fashionable tailor three 
weeks after that and bought a suit for $100 in- 
cluding overcoat and gloves and neckties and other lux- 
uries of the toilet case. When Victoria had been with 
him she had regulated his expenditures. How that 
she was gone he put no check upon his extravagances. 
It was easy at the rate he was going, to expend every 
cent he earned and all that Victoria sent him. To 
avoid suspicion on his father’s part he had at first turned 
over a little money for household uses. But during the 
last month he had gone into debt for several things. 
And that had led up to the Clark street experience. 

One evening he had gone to a band concert and 
while there he met a young man who had formerly 
played in the same orchestra with Victor’s father. He 
had chatted with Victor during the intervals between 
the numbers and at the close of the concert had walked 
along towards home with him. Cutting through Clark 
Street to shorten the distance, his companion had pro- 
posed that they stop at a friend’s for a moment and 
Vietor, unsuspecting the exact character of the place, 
went in. Once there he yielded to the horrible fasv 


QUE8TI0\^ CLA88, 


79 


cination of the gambling mania. He went repeatedly 
after the first evening. When Tom saw him that Sat- 
urday he had become familiar with the place and others 
like it by frequent visits. It is needless to say that he 
was the victim of the professional sharpers who fleeced 
their victims so cunningly that they were actually made 
to ‘believe that they would some time win everything 
back. It seemed incredible that the artistic gifted soul 
of one like Victor could fall down at the feet of this 
Gambling God. Nevertheless he fell and with a swift- 
ness that was terrible. It was his miserable vanity, his 
love of display, his yearning for fine, luxurious things 
that led him to his fall. And neither the pleadings of 
his own conscience nor the remembrance of Victoria nor 
the manly appeal of John King were of any avail to 
turn him back from his chosen way. His deception in 
his letters to Victoria in which he asked for money 
was simply one indication among others of the awful 
nature of the passion which, as John King had said, is 
death to all true life and bound to become master un- 
less fought and subdued. 

So Victor began the next Sunday to sing in the 
Cathedral at St. Mark’s Avenue, where his voice at- 
tracted even more people, if possible, than at John 
King’s church. 


80 


JOZ/A’ KING’S 


Meanwhile Victoria was as yet ignorant of the truth 
and her happiness was undimmed by the knowledge of 
what would have poisoned her career. There was no 
one to inform her of Victor’s habits. The father 
guessed or suspected what was going on hut his own 
lapses into drunken ways deadened his sense of honor 
at moral weakness in his boy. J ohn King was honestly 
puzzled for the time being to know just the extent 
of his duty in the way of informing Victoria of what he 
knew. He was not in doubt for long hut while he hesi- 
tated, Victoria went on her way with the old thought 
of the brother. She was living a life of genuine enjoy- 
ment in spite of the severe physical strain under which 
she was compelled to perform her part in the company. 

One who has never gone upon the road with a mu- 
sical or theatrical company cannot understand the con- 
stant tension which such a life implies. It is made up 
of stops at all kinds of hotels, irregular hours for sleep, 
unnatural hours for travel and eating, with demands 
upon the patience and the nerves that belong to such a 
career. Victoria endured the hardship and excite- 
ment as part of the life she had chosen for herself. She 
was a favorite with the other members of the company 
because she was free from all professional pride and 
jealousy. Several times she had accommodated other 


QUESTION CLASS. 


81 


members in the hotel advantages and other ways where 
musical and theatrical professional people do not usually 
take pains to be friendly. As a consequence nearly 
every one in the company w^as on good terms with the 
little violinist. The public received her warmly also. 
Hardly a concert passed in any town without making 
two or three recalls for Victoria. Her reputation was 
steadily growing. After she had been with the man- 
ager four months he even hinted at an increase in the 
contract price but had not yet paid her more than at 
the beginning. 

So the life, the public life, pleased Victoria, and as 
she said to herself it suited her. It was a busy life 
with very little leisure for social pleasures or reading 
or culture aside from the individual culture of one’s 
own gift. Sundays were rest days. The circuit of 
regular engagements sometimes called for Sunday 
travel. It happened that during this special season, 
Sundays were little broken into and generally Victoria 
spent the day either in writing to Victor, resting 
quietly at her hotel, or attending services somewhere 
with one or two of the company. When the Sunday 
found them in one of the larger towns or in the cities, 
she found out the superintendent of the hospital or 
blind asylum or whatever institution for suffering hu- 


82 


JOHN KINC^’S 


manity was established near, and offered her services as 
player for the pleasure of the inmates. Her habit in 
this which the other members of the company thought 
an odd whim, became known as her reputation grew, 
and very often she would find waiting for her in places 
where Sunday stops w^ere made, three or four invitations 
to as many different hospitals or refuges of suffering 
human kind begging her to come and give one of her 
Sunday recitals. They were not recitals either. They 
were rather the tenderest, most healing, devout, rever- 
ent hymns of prayer that she made her beloved Cre- 
mona breathe out like a living soul for the delight and 
rest and worship of the poor souls racked with pain or 
tortured with sin. The sight of Victoria on a Sunday 
afternoon, standing in the middle of one of the wards 
of a great hospital with rows of white beds stretching 
past on both sides, with nurses and doctors and servants 
standing about listening, with white faces on many pil- 
lows glistening with tears as the music pulsated and 
throbbed and flowed through heart and mind with up- 
lifting and soothing power, — this was what very few 
who saw and heard ever forgot./ As for Victoria it 
w^as her one hour of worship in public. Many a grand 
church had eagerly sought to add to its attractions for 
Sunday music the little woman who played such a vio- 


QUESTION CLASS. 


83 


lin, but if there was a hospital or poor house or a refuge 
for sinful or depraved that needed her or asked her she 
always went where the suffering and the sinful were. 
She never played on such occasions without thinking 
of Aura. The white loving unconscious face of her 
dead friend just as she looked that time when she 
smiled and said, knew you would keep your prom- 
ise/’ looked up at Victoria from many and many a cot 
in strange places where she played those Sunday after- 
noons. Then she would go back to her room and often 
kneel down and pray that she might atone for her for- 
mer selfishness, as she called it, by future service. 
There was something of the Eoman Catholic in Vic- 
toria and yet she was not what people would generally 
call a religious girl. She was religious to the extent 
that she would have done almost any amount of penance 
for a wrong but it is doubtful if she ever would have 
confessed her wrong to any one except to God alone. 

The Question Class had. nearly all gathered at John 
King’s the evening after Victor’s last solo in the church. 
It lacked a few minutes of eight o’clock. The class 
was having a social time as usual. Tom and Richard 
were discussing a recent novel; three or four young 
men and women were standing near by and listening. 

^^Of course,” Tom was saying, ^fit isn’t necessary 


84 


JOHN KING’S 


that every novel should be a sermon. That isn’t the 
object of a novel.” 

^^At the same time,” said Eichard, ^^a novel without 
a definite purpose to teach or better the reader always 
seems to me like a waste of brain to write and a waste of 
time to read.” 

^Alr. Bruce would rule out all the books that are 
written to amuse people,” Miss Fergus remarked with a 
laugh. 

^^Not if the amusement was what people needed to 
rest them and make them better able to do their work. 
There is a place in the world for what is funny as well 
as for what is serious.” 

^^Yes,” said Tom, ^a time to laugh and a time to 
weep.’ That’s scripture.” 

Just then John King came in and the class settled 
itself for the evening. He had not had as much time 
as usual to look over the questions and he said so to 
the class, asking them to be patient with him if his an- 
swers were partial and unsatisfactory. 

The first question was, ^'What would you do with a 
million dollars if you had them?” 

H don’t know. Do you? Does anybody? I would 
buy a cork foot for a poor woman who lost her 
foot by an accident lately and can’t earn her living 


QUESTION CLASS. 


85 


by washing as she did before the loss of her foot. 
Sixty dollars will buy it and she can go on with her 
w^ork, so the surgeon says, but no one has sixty dollars 
to spare. At least I have not been able to find any one 
who has that much, though I have been to several men 
who are worth several hundred thousand dollars. Of 
course if I had two million dollars I could probably 
spare sixty dollars out of it. And then I would buy Grace 
there a piano if I thought she would make a good use 
of it and with a part of what was left I would start about 
a hundred Kindergartens down in the slums and en- 
dow them handsomely. And — well I don’t know. It 
would puzzle me to know how to get rid of such a quan- 
tity as a million. It would be an awful responsibility. I 
believe I should want a guardian appointed over me and 
even then I expect I should make a good many foolish 
uses of such an amount of money. I expect I should 
have to resign from my church if I fell heir to a 
million dollars.” 

‘‘Why?” asked Tom suddenly. The class laughed 
at the interruption, it was so sudden and so unusual. 

“Why!” replied John King with a comical look at 
Tom. “Because if I was worth a million, my church 
wouldn’t think it necessary to pay me my salary 
promptly.” The preacher took up another question. 


^6 


JOHN KIHG’H 


^^What is the best use to which a large fortune can 
be putr 

‘The questions seem to me to run to finance to- ' 
night. It does not seem hard to tell how we would 
dispose of other people’s money if we only had it, but if 
We actually had it to use, it would not seem so easy. 

1 once knew a millionaire who said he was in almost 
constant trouble concerning the disposition of his be- 
nevolences. He said people had no idea of the num- 
ber of calls that a rich man had upon his benevolence. 
Undoubtedly the best use to which a large fortune can 
be put is to make it do the most good in its use to the 
largest number of people and do it in one’s own life 
time. I am one of those who believe the right and best 
use of money is to make it do all it will while I am 
alive to plan and execute. I don’t believe in bequeath- 
ing very large sums to people or institutions after I am 
dead. In nine cases out of ten where a rich man leaves 
his son large wealth that the son has never worked for 
or denied himself to get, it has been squandered or 
foolishly invested, leaving the next generation where 
the grandfather began his struggle. I would bequeath 
plenty of knowledge, virtue, manhood, energy, cheer- 
fulness, but not much unearned wealth. This inherit- 
ance of other people’s money as a general thing pro- 


QUESTION CLASS. 


87 


duces a class of selfish aristocrats who have a scorn of 
physical toil and are lacking in sympthy with the great 
toiling masses. The best use to which a large fortune 
can be put is to use it. And to use a large fortune 
right requires more wisdom and consecration than most 
men of wealth possess. It is very easy to ask What 
would Christ do with a large fortune if he were living 
now? It is not so easy to tell how he would act in de- 
tail. 

^^What! Another one on the money question?” 
John King exclaimed as he took the third question out 
of the box. “Well, this seems like a fair one.” 

“Is not the possession of money really necessary to 
the happiness and the very development of life as we 
have to live it on earth?” 

“Yes, we have to pay our bills if we wish to escape 
a good deal of worry. Unless we are of that class of 
people who never worry about anything, not even their 
own sins. There is nothing gained by crying down 
money. The Bible does not say that money is evil. 
It is the love of it that is the root of all kinds of evil. 
But money itself is a very convenient medium of ex- 
change and every civilized man must have it to buy 
food, clothes, education, and a thousand other necessi- 
ties. In that sense it is absolutely necessary. It is 


88 


JOIfN KING'S 


true that certain things are out of our reach if we do 
not possess wealth. We cannot travel abroad, we cannot 
educate ourselves in Art or Music or Literature or 
Science to any great extent without money. We are 
shut out from very many grand and beautiful experi- 
ences no doubt, if we do not possess the only thing 
that will make them known to us, and in that sense it is 
literally true that the possession of wealth is necessary 
to our development. That is what comes of being civ- 
ilized. But while all this is true, don’t make the mis- 
take of supposing that happiness depends on money. 
If it did, the world would be a much more sorrowful 
place than it now is. Happiness is not the result of 
possessions. It may exist with and may exist without 
them. The development of civilized life as we live it, 
may make large use of money. That is, money can 
buy development, it can buy leisure, travel, luxuries. 
But it cannot buy contentment, peace of conscience, or 
happiness. Don’t forget the saying of the greatest and 
wisest teacher of human life. Tor a man’s life con- 
sisteth not in the abundance of the things which he 
possesseth.’ It is not what we have that determines 
our happiness or unhappiness. It is what we are.” 

^^(1.) What are the most conspicuous faults of the 
young men of this age? 


QUESTIO^^ CLASS. 


89 


^^(2.) What are the most conspicuous faults of the 
young women of this age?” 

^This is contrary to our rules. Only one question 
from each member of the class, you know. But we will 
let it pass this time. Perhaps no one has a right to 
say what are the faults of an age. We see so few people 
out of the millions living. The faults of the young 
men I know, say a few hundred in all (young men, 
not faults), are thoughtlessness, shallow thinking, lack 
of reverence, not enough definite purpose in life, too 
easy contentment with easy going things. A good 
many young men are vain of their physical beauty 
and — well it hurts me to try to answer this question, 
I don’t like to hurt your feelings either — ” 

^Tsn’t present company excepted, sir?” asked Tom. 

^^You must not force me to be too honest, Tom, 
we are all mortal. As to the young women, their 
greatest faults are — I declare — I don’t think of any 
just at present,” (loud cries of protest from several 
young men in the class), ^^but on second thought I may 
be allowed to say that there are faults enough, that is 
to say, well — we are all human. Really this is not in 
my line, seems too much like finding fault, young peo- 
ple, and that won’t do, especially in a preacher. So 
we had best let this question pass. One or two more ” 


90 


JOHN KING’S 


“Is it harder to do right than wrong?” 

“Sometimes. Depends on what sort of a habit 
you’ve got into. Doing right is a habit. Doing 
wrong is a habit. It’s like going to church. If you 
are in the habit of going it’s easy. If not, it’s hard. I 
have known people to stay away from prayer meeting 
on a rainy night just because they were not in the habit 
of going on a pleasant night. If Adam and Eve had 
resisted the first temptation and the second and the 
third, after awhile they would have acquired the habit 
of doing right all the time.” 

“Is it pleasanter to do right than wrong?” 

“Ah! I suspect some of you have been writing 
your questions in company. I don’t care. It shows an 
interest in the work that does me good. 

“Pleasanter to do right than wrong? Try it and 
see. Most of you have done so, I take it. What re- 
sult did you find? Answer your own question. People 
sometimes sneer at goodness as if it were dull and 
stupid and never had any good times. The time to 
judge of the pleasantness of doing right or wrong is 
not at the immediate time of the action, it is in the end. 
At the close of the transaction. That may come years 
after. Some things that taste good at the time leave 
a bitter taste in the mouth afterwards. There is only 


QUESTION CLASS. 


91 


one right answer to this question. It is always pleas- 
anter to do right than wrong. We are not to judge 
by the feeling, but by the result.” 

John King dismissed the class early on account of 
pressure of other work. He was also feeling more than 
usually grave and troubled over Victor and his knowl- 
edge of the boy’s serious danger. As the week wore on 
he at last decided on his course of action. He could 
not let the matter remain where it was. There was 
a bright strong soul going to ruin. It was not in the 
nature of John King to see it and do nothing. And so 
he did what seemed to him the only thing left for him 
to do. 

When Saturday came again Victoria was playing in 
one of the large towns three hundred miles from John 
King’s church and the Cathedral of St. Mark’s Avenue. 
In the afternoon of the day she had received a short 
letter from Victor. 

Dear Vi: 

“Father is ill again. He took a severe cold three days ago. 
His old rheumatism is confining him to the house. He will not 
be able to walk for a week at the quickest. I find that the 
expenses of the house are very large. Father demands the best of 
everything when he is ill. Don’t you think it would be possible 
to get the manager to raise your salary? Insist upon it, Vi. 
You are worth more than $75 a week. If you can spare a little 
first of next week it will be a great help. I am singing at St. 
Mark’s Avenue now. I don’t get but three dollars a Sunday more 
than John King’s paid, but ev^ery little helps. Don’t get sick. 
Good by, Victor. 


92 


JOHN KING^S 


Victoria read this letter with a feeling of pain. It 
seemed cold and hard. It lacked loving phrases. Not 
even a ''Yours Lovingly” at the close. And the con- 
stant appeal for money hurt her. She would have 
shared every cent she had with Victor but could not 
explain his extravagance. It seemed so unnecessary. 
A vague feeling of trouble, of coming sorrow passed 
over her. She went to the hall for the evening con- 
cert, feeling depressed. Once on the stage with her in- 
strument she played as usual. But she was glad when 
it was over. The hotel was near by but it was raining 
and as she came out of the hall carrying her violin she 
felt so tired and full of longing to get into her room 
that without waiting for others as usual, she beck- 
oned for a cab. There were half a dozen near and two 
or three started up towards the curb. At that moment 
a man who had been standing near the corner watch- 
ing people come out of the hall came out and standing 
in front of Victoria, took off his hat. She was sur- 
prised but not frightened, iintil as the electric light 
blazed out clearer she saw it was her father just drunk 
enough to be very timidly polite. The shock of meet- 
ing him at this distance from home just after Victor’s 
letter, so startled Victoria that she stepped back off 
the curb and lost her balance. One of the cabs coming 


QUESTION CLASS. 


93 


up, knocked the violin case out of her hand. It fell 
under the horse’s feet and before Victoria had recov- 
ered herself to rescue it, the horses plunged violently 
and pulled the heavy cab over it. The light wood case 
was smashed into splinters. Victoria, regardless of all 
danger, sprang down into the confusion, even the 
strange appearance of her father forgotten in the 
thought of the accident to the precious Cremona, loaned 
her by the manager. Some one coming out of the hall 
helped her. She dragged the fragments of the precious 
case out upon the sidewalk and knelt over them in the 
rain. The violin had been completely ruined. The 
neck was broken into several pieces and the body of the 
instrument was a mass of brown splinters. She buried 
her face in her hands and sobbed. It was like the death 
of an old friend to see her dear old violin torn to pieces. 
She shuddered. Then she lifted her eyes and saw her 
father standing there. 


CHAPTEE V. 


Victoria kneeled there in the rain over the 
ruins of the precious violin and grew more 
and more conscious of her father’s presence, 
and of his drunken condition, she almost lost heart at 
the thought of what lay before her. Her public career, 
however, had been a stern teacher of self control. She 
soon became aware of a curious crowd of all sorts of 
people that had gathered around her. She rose quickly 
and gathering up the pieces of the instrument, she 
walked resolutely up to her father and said to him 
firmly, ^Tather, I want you to go with me. Do you 
understand?” 

The father nodded, half sobered by the accident. 

Victoria almost pushed him into the cab and 
throwing the fragments of the case and violin upon the 
floor she entered herself, telling the driver her hotel. 
Once there she managed to get the father up to her 
room and throwing the pieces of the instrument on a 
chair, she flung herself on a couch and gave way to a 
good cry. The fhct was she was nervmus and exhausted 
with an unusually hard week’s work. The sight of her 



JOHN KING^S QUESTION CLASS, 


05 


father and the rnin of her instrument proved to be 
more than she could bear. 

The father sat stupidly looking at her. The sight 
of her distress was rapidly sobering him. After awhile 
when Victoria’s sobs had ceased he said feebly, ^^Don’t 
cry, Victoria. Aren’t you glad to see me?” 

^^Of course I am, father. But I had no idea that 
you were anywhere near me. ATctor wrote that you 
were ill with your old rheumatic trouble and could not 
leave the house.” 

haven’t been sick at all,” said her father. 

^AVhy did Victor write me so then?” asked Vic- 
toria a little sharply. She did not know how far she 
could trust her father’s word in his present con- 
dition. 

“Victor has been going to the bad. He doesn’t 
drink, but he gambles.” 

Victoria trembled. For the time being she forgot 
all about her violin. This was a greater trouble if it 
were true. 

“Tell me, father. Do you know that? Oh no! I 
can’t believe it. Victor was vain and extravagant but 
he never had bad acquaintances. I’m sure he never 
had any vices.” 

“John King told me,” replied the father who al- 


96 


JOEI^ KING^S 


ways confined himself to short sentences when under 
the influence of liquor. 

It was an unsatisfactory explanation but in the 
morning Victoria learned the whole truth. Her father 
was sober and humble. He shrank before Victoria like 
a guilty child. But he told her why he had come. 

John King had finally felt the pressure of his 
knowledge of Victor’s course so great that he could 
bear it no longer and resolved to get word in some way 
to the sister. He thought of the two as they had stood 
before him that first Sunday, bright, gifted, handsome 
with health and youth. It was not right for the girl to 
remain ignorant of the boy’s evil ways. She might have 
the power to redeem him if she knew. So John King 
had gone to the father and told him. He knew very 
little of the family. Nothing at all of Mr. Stanwood’s 
drinking habits. He had impressed on the father the 
importance of letting Victoria know the facts in some 
way and his judgment was confirmed by Mr. Stanwood 
who declared that Victoria’s influence over her brother 
had always been greater than his own. And so it hap- 
pened that Mr. Stanwood, taking what money he could 
get together, had started the very next day to go and 
see Victoria, 

Once on the way he had yielded to his temptation 


QUESTION CLASS. 97 

and by the time he reached the town where Victoria 
was playing he was under the influence of the drink, 
not enough however to prevent his finding out where 
Victoria was playing. He lingered about the hall un- 
til Victoria came out and then approached her with the 
result we have seen. 

As they talked it over that morning, with the father 
seated in a dejected and depressed attitude and Vic- 
toria looking over towards- the ruined violin every few 
moments with a look of grave sorrow, she began to 
understand the deception of Victor’s letters. He had 
purposely lied to her about himself and his father in 
order to get more money with which to gamble. This 
fact as the father made it clear to Victoria filled her 
heart with indignation. She could not find any ex- 
cuse for such deceit. She was perfect truthfulness 
herself in every detail, and much as she loved Victor 
she could not help rebuking him for yielding to his 
great vanity which had led him astray. 

^^How much is Victor getting now at St. Mark’s 
Avenue?” she asked her father. 

^^He is getting twenty-two dollars a Sunday. I 
found out from friends of mine on the music com- 
mittee there.” 

''And yet he wrote me that he was getting only 


^8 


JOHN idNa\^ 


three dollars a Sunday more than at John King’s.” 
Victoria flushed at the remembrance of the appeals 
made to her by Victor for more money. She found 
that her love for him was mixed with contempt and a 
loss of respect. At the same time it was all terrible to 
her. One thing however she was determined on. She 
would not send Victor another cent of money. She 
told her father so and made arrangements with him to 
place all the money not needed for the home expenses 
in the bank. Victoria could trust her father with that. 
Weak and yielding as he was in the matter of the drink 
passion, he had never deceived Victoria in money mat- 
ters and had not misappropriated what she had sent 
directly to him. 

By the time everything had been talked over it was 
nearly noon. Almost for the first time that morning 
Victoria remembered that it was Sunday. She re- 
membered, also, at the same moment that the manager 
had made an appointment to come with his wife, who 
was a member of the company, and go with her to the ' 
great Hospital of Incurables, as it was called, and be 
present while she played. The manager had been with 
the company only part of the time. His business re- 
lations with other companies on the road had prevented 
his being with his first concert company. He had ex- 


QUESTION CLASS. 


99 


pected to reach the city Saturday night. Ilis wife had 
told Victoria the day before that he wished to go to 
the hospital in the afternoon and Victoria had felt 
pleased to have their sympathy and interest in what 
had become a real part of her best life. 

But now she thought of the manager’s coming with 
a feeling like terror. He was large hearted in many 
ways. His loan of the instrument to her was one token 
of that. But he was also an intense lover of rare ar- 
ticles gathered from the ends of the earth. He had 
in his collection daggers given to him by famous actors 
w'ho had played Macbeth. Costly copies of rare books 
donated by great authors. Gems once worn by re- 
nowned singers. Musical instruments played by com- 
posers and singers. The Cremona given him by Ca- 
milla Urso was one of the choicest pieces of his collec- 
tion. Victoria knew that he prized it as a peculiarly 
valuable instrument, both from its personal history and 
its intrinsic worth as a violin. Probably its duplicate 
could not be found in all Europe. Victoria looked over 
at the shapeless mass which was in the corner where she 
had thrown it and she shuddered again as she had done 
when she kneeled over it in the rain. 

She wished that her father was not in the hotel. 
She dreaded his presence when the manager came. And 


100 


JOHI^ KIISG^S 


yet she did not want to send him out of the hotel for 
fear he would get to drinking again. He had planned 
to start for home again Monday morning. 

Victoria and the father went down to dinner al- 
though neither of them felt like eating anything. Vic- 
toria was wretched. Her thought of Victor w^as a 
thought of mingled love and indignation. Her heart 
bled for him. She wished she could see him and talk 
with him. 

Father and daughter had been back in their room 
about an hour where they had been sitting silently 
when there was a knock, and as Victoria, her heart beat- 
ing, opened the door, in came the manager and his 
wife. They were in good spirits and greeted Victoria 
heartily. She introduced her father nervously and 
tried to summon up courage for the confession before 
her. 

^^Well, Miss Stanwood,’’ said the manager, always 
hear good reports of your success. The company is 
having a good season, thanks largely to your reputa- 
tion on the Cremona. Come. Can’t we have a little 
prelude on it before we go over to the Hospital? Give 
us the Paganini’s Witch Dance if you don’t object to 
it on Sunday.” 

Victoria caught her breath and then trembled. 


QUESTION CLASS. 


101 


Then suddenly rising she went over to the corner where 
the fragments of the Cremona lay and gathering them 
up brought them over and stood holding them directly 
in front of the manager. Her cheeks were burning and 
her voice broke as she said, 

had an accident last night. And here is the 
Cremona ruined. You can dismiss me from the com- 
pany and I will work at something until I earn enough 
to pay what this cost. I know I cannot really ever pay 
for it. I—” 

She could not say more. The look on the manager’s 
face stopped her. 

^Tay for it!” he exclaimed jumping up angrily. 
should think not! What a piece of folly on my part to 
let that go out of my hands! Why, do you know what 
the value of that instrument was?” Victoria did not 
say a word. 

The manager went on excitedly, 

^^Why, it couldn’t be duplicated anywhere. It cost 
over two thousand dollars and its real value as a souve- 
nir of one of the greatest women players in the world 
was invaluable. I was a fool! A fool!” The manager 
was almost beside himself. Victoria, feeling as she did, 
offered no excuse, attempted no defense. She felt 
that all the manager could say was deserved. Had she 


102 


JOHN KING^S 


not loved the instrument as much as he? Was it not 
like losing a dear friend, a relative, to lose its compan- 
ionship. She stood there pale with agony, sensitive soul 
as she was, and not a tear came to relieve her. The 
manager was almost beside himself with anger. He 
forgot to be a gentleman. ^^Yes,’^ he kept repeating, 
was a fool to let a mere girl have the care of — ” 

It was at that point that Victoria was amazed to see 
her father rise up from his seat by the window where 
he had apparently been forgotten by every one and 
walking across the room he confronted the excited man- 
ager, and said with a firmness and dignity that Victoria 
had never seen in him before, ^^Sir, it may be that you 
were a fool as you say to let my daughter have the violin 
to use, but I will not allow her to be humiliated by 
your reproaches when she is suffering sufficiently al- 
ready. If you want to blame any one for this misfor- 
tune, blame me. I caused it.” 

The manager stopped and a great wave of blood 
crossed his face. For a moment Victoria almost feared 
he was going to strike her father. Then he sat down 
while Mr. Stanwood briefly but clearly related the cir- 
cumstances connected with the accident. He made no 
attempt to conceal his own intoxication but related 
everything as it was. When he had finished, the man- 


QUESTION CLASS. 


103 


ager was silent. He had had time to cool off. Vic- 
toria sat on the conch, her head buried in the cushions. 

The manager was a person who had seen a good deal 
of life and he was not a fool in spite of his statement 
about himself so recently made. He was also a true 
gentleman at heart, and besides he had an eye for busi- 
ness and knew the value of Victoria to his company. 
There was an awkward pause broken by the manager 
as he rose again and holding out his hand said, “^^Miss 
Stanwood, I apologize for my loss of temper. Will you 
come and see me in the hotel parlor to-morrow morn- 
ing? You will hardly care to go to the Hospital to- 
day.” He added the last sentence with a slight smile 
and without another word went out of the room with 
his wife. 

After he had gone, Victoria broke down. She cried, 
this girl of nineteen, as hard as if she were a little child 
instead of the woman who had begun to win the repu- 
tation of the first player on the violin in America. Her 
father after his manly defense of her had lapsed again 
into the weak impersonal character she knew so well. 
But he comforted her as best he could. He seemed to 
be preoccupied with something. It was so marked that 
Victoria, even in her anguish, noticed it. Later in the 
day he inquired if there was not some train for home 


104 


JOU^ KING’S 


he could take that night. There was one starting about 
midnight. To Victoria’s surprise he insisted on going 
home on that train. She tried to persuade him to re- 
main until morning. But he was firm and started that 
night. The last words he said were, '‘'Don’t worry 
over the violin. We shall find a way to pay for it.” 

In the morning after breakfast Victoria went into 
the parlor to see the manager. He came in, a few mo- 
ments after, and greeted her gravely. Victoria was 
nervous. 

'T can’t conceal my regret at the ruin of the Cre- 
mona of course. Miss Stanwood. It was highly prized 
by me. It will seriously affect your playing also.” 

"Yes, it is a miserable thing for you. I have no ex- 
cuse. I am ready to leave the company if you think 
best. I have no heart to play more.” 

The manager looked at her keenly. He was an ex- 
perienced man of the world and something in Vic- 
toria’s manner told him that something more than the 
loss of the violin was troubling her. He asked no 
questions but went on. 

"Ho, that would be foolish.” He looked at the 
small sorrowful figure and said, his face and manner 
lighting up, "Do you know. Miss Stanwood, you can 
make any violin, even a common one, talk as most per- 


QUESTION CLASS. 


105 


formers cannot make a Cremona talk? You are not 
dependent on any particular instrument. I cannot af- 
ford to lose you out of my company. Besides I wish to 
tell you in confidence I am expecting to go abroad in 
less than a month with the best of the company and I 
want you to go with them.” 

Victoria stared and her pulses throbbed. Abroad! 
To play in London, Paris, Berlin! It had been the 
dream of her childhood. But then, could she leave her 
father and Victor? She must have time to think of it. 

She told the manager so and he seemed willing to 
give her time to decide it. 

‘^‘^Take two weeks. At the end of that time let me 
know. Meanwhile I have secured a good instrument 
for you until you can send for your own if you wish to.” 
And the manager rose and went away leaving Victoria 
thankful to him for his courtesy and the absence of any 
resentment against her, so far as she could see, for the 
ruin of the poor Cremona. 

She wrote a brief note to the father asking him to 
send her own violin. Also a letter to Victor, a letter of 
loving entreaty that he would for her sake and the 
sake of his future success live the life of a true gentle- 
man. She wrote him with the loving frankness and 
truthfulness that always characterized her. 


106 


JOHN KING^S 


cannot let you have any more money, Vic, until 
I am assured that you will make a good use of it. 
Gambling in any form has always had a great horror 
to me. I cannot endure the thought of you, dear, dear 
Vic, becoming a victim to this vice. I am almost un- 
nerved for my work. But I must go on. I cannot 
even leave to come and see you. I am under sacred 
contract to remain with the company this month and 
there is a possibility that at the end of that time 1 may 
go abroad. 0 A^ic, for the sake of the love you bear 
me, for the sake of the old times when we were so 
happy as children, be a man. Use your great gift 
to be a blessing to yourself and to others. You know 
I do not very often pray for anything. But every day 
I offer a prayer for you. God bless and keep you, 
dear Vic.” 

There came no answer to this letter. Through all 
the remaining weeks of her contract with the com- 
pany, Victoria received no reply to it or to others writ- 
ten. Victor would not write a word. She wrote 
again and still no answer and it seemed to Victoria 
that a death had taken place, the death of the ola 
loving relationship that once existed between them. 

Two days after writing to her father for the violin 
Victoria was astonished to receive from him a letter 


QUESTION CLASS. 


107 


containing a draft for two thousand dollars, explained 
by the letter. 

Your mother, Victoria, at the time of her death was in pos- 
session of a certain portion of her' older sister’s estate which was 
in litigation. She charged me without your knowledge (you were 
only six years old at that time) to use the income from the 
property for you and Victor when you became old enough to 
receive most benefit from it. The two thousand is the accumula- 
tion from this income during the last twelve years. Under 
the legal terms by which the property is administered Victor will 
come into the possession of a certain sum when he is of age. 
This two thousand is your own to use as you see fit. If the pay- 
ment of all or part of it for the ruined violin will be more satis- 
factory to you than any other use, you are at liberty so to dis- 
pose of it. That was the price which the manager mentioned. 
Your poor old father, Vi, is a disgrace to you in many ways. 
But he has guarded this little inheritance for you and wants you 
to get out of it all that it can give you at the present time. 

Victor has not been home since I returned. 

Your loving father, George Stan wood. 

Victoria held the draft in her hand and wondered 
if it was all a dream. It read like a chapter out of 
a story. She thought with a tear in her eye of her 
father’s care of this trust confided to him. It was 
like him to he willing that she should use the money 
to pay for the violin. He was always very simple in 
his thought of money and all its uses. But in her 
heart she felt glad to think she could pay the manager. 
She was like her father in that sensitive shrinking from 
being under obligation to such an extent. 

So that very day she found an opportunity to pre- 
sent the draft to the manager. It was duly endorsed 


108 


JOHN KING’S 


and the manager saw in a second that it was good for 
the cash in full. 

He held it in his hand a moment, looking down 
at the little figure that stood before him so gravely. 

did not know, Miss Stanwood, that I was em- 
ploying in my concert company an heiress in disguise,” 
he said, with a twinkle of the eye that belonged to 
his whole face. 

Victoria felt a little annoyed. am not an heiress. 
That is simply a little money my mother left me to 
use when I grew up. If you will take it I shall feel 
as if I had made part amends for breaking the violin.” 

There was a moment’s hesitation and then the man- 
ager said quietly, ^^Very well.” That was all. He put 
the draft into his pocketbook. Victoria felt better. 
Somehow she had anticipated a long discussion. She 
thought at first then, the manager would not accept the 
money. She thought that he had probably come to the 
conclusion that he could not afford to lose two thousand 
dollar violins without some compensation. Besides, as has 
been said, the manager had an eye for business. He 
was shrewd and careful and his expenses were large. 
So that while liberal and large hearted in many ways he 
generally reckoned very sharply with those in his em- 
ploy. Victoria therefore saw her two thousand dollars 


QUEl^iTlOX CLASS, 


100 


vanish in the pocket book of the manager and being the 
daughter of her father with his ideas of money she did 
not feel any great loss. She had grown up without 
knowledge of money. It did not really mean so very 
much to her after all except in its power to give her a 
certain relief of mind for the irreparable loss. 

When the two wrecks were up, during which Victoria 
was debating over the trip abroad, she signed articles 
with the manager for six months to go abroad with the 
company. They were to start within a month. That 
gave her time to go home and visit a little. 

She had been longing all the time to see Victor 
again. When she reached the city and stepped down 
from the train her father was there to meet her. She 
looked around for the familiar, boyish, exquisitely 
dressed figure of Victor. 

Where is Victor, father?’’ 

^^He has gone away. We had a quarrel and he left 
home. He would not tell me where he was going.” 

So Victoria’s home coming was without much com- 
fort. She wanted to see Victor, to talk with him before 
she sailed, to have some assurance that he was going to 
live a noble life. With a heavy heart she made her 
preparations for her trip in the few days left her, hop- 
ing every day that Victor would appear. But he had 


110 


e/Off.V KING'S 


left the church at St. Mark’s Avenue and no one of his 
few friends in the city knew where he was, and the day 
came when Victoria left for New York to take the 
steamer there and the last look she cast tearfully back 
rested on her father standing in the station forlorn, 
alone. Victoria sighed with a sob of homesickness as 
she saw him there. Her prayer went out for him and 
for Victor. Would they ever be united? God bless 
father and Victor, was her prayer as the train whirled 
her out into the new life before her. 

When the Question Class met at John King’s the 
Monday night after Victoria’s departure it was unusu- 
ally crowded and the questions were of a more varied 
character than he had ever had to answer. The first 
one he' took out was — 

^^How shall I spend Sunday?” 

^^That depends on who you are. If you are a minis- 
ter, you will spend the day in a certain manner. If you 
are a blacksmith, you will spend it in another manner. 
In either case you will attend church service if you are 
well and able otherwise to go. Every man needs the 
good which comes from attending public worship. 
Whether you will go more than once to church will 
depend on several things. If your cares and burdens 
of housework are such that the body demands physical 


QUESTION CLASS. 


Ill 


rest it may be all that you ought to do to attend one 
service. If you are well and strong and blessed with 
plenty of energy the best way for you to spend Sunday 
is to do your share in all the church work on Sunday, 
the Sunday School, and the young people’s meeting and 
the evening service. Some one has to take hold of these 
things or they wouldn’t be done. And I have noticed 
that the people who are active in the Sunday School and 
Young People’s meeting are, as a rule, to be found at the 
evening service, when there is one, and from my observa- 
tion, these people live just as long and have just as 
good health and appear to be just as happy as the people 
who don’t go to but one church service or to none at all. 
Then there should be time and room on Sunday for some 
good quiet thinking and reading and resting of mind and 
heart. Eest and worship. These are the great ideas 
of the day that we need to insist upon. The day was 
made for man. It is full of possibilities. It is possible 
for us to spend it in a great variety of ways and still 
spend it right. This rule it seems to me can safely be 
made. Never do any thing on that day that will inter- 
fere with the rest and worship of yourself and others.” 

^^Why are theaters considered immoral and question- 
able places of amusement by so many people?” 

^^Because too often immoral or questionable plays are 


112 


JOSN KI^G^S 


to be found in theaters. A play recently traveled over 
the United States and was seen and heard in all the 
large cities in which the lesson taught was so productive 
of evil that several crimes were directly traced to it 
committed by young men and boys who had witnessed 
it. It is a terrible shame that so powerful a teacher of 
great moral lessons should have so bad a reputation. 
The theater started as a religious institution. Only 
plays with a tremendous religious moral were used by 
the Greeks, for the most part, in the beginning of the 
dramatic art. At present the use of plays with immoral 
love for the central idea is so common that very many 
people declare the influence of the theater is altogether 
bad. I do not go so far as that, but I do think that the 
theater to-day is a long ways from being what it ought 
to be. If people would only discriminate and never go 
to any but the good plays, the managers would soon cease 
to give the public anything questionable. Because it 
wouldn’t pay. And that is what the managers are look- 
ing for. But I have seen the very same people who 
went and applauded the lessons taught by as clean 
and wholesome a play as ‘Little Lord Fauntleroy,’ 
go the very next night and sit through two or three 
hours of a questionable play concerning which a 
noted theater-goer in this city said to me, Tt made 


QUESTION CLASS, 


113 


me blush for shame for weeks afterwards.’ And 
yet he went just the same because the acting was 
such a treat, and he would go again if he had a 
chance.” 

^^Does it pay to be unselfish?” 

^^Yes, if feelings count for anything. You won’t al- 
ways make so much money or have so easy a time but 
you’ll feel better inside.” 

'^What are the two best books for the average young 
man to read?” 

^The Bible, and Pilgrim’s Progress. The young man 
who is familiar with these two volumes will be well edu- 
cated so far as a knowledge of literature and humanity 
is concerned.” 

^^What is a short rule for success in business?” 

^^Tell the truth. Be prompt, courteous, and kindly. 
Pray every morning for wisdom in details. Take God 
into partnership. Glorify Him in everything you do. 
Follow these directions and you will not always make 
money, but you will succeed. And success even in busi- 
ness does not consist in simply making money. It con- 
sists in making manhood. Anything which does not do 
that is failure.” 

^^You said a few weeks ago that falling in love was 
as natural as coming of age. How does it happen then 


114 


JOra KING^S 


that so many young men make mistakes and fall in love 
with the wrong girl?” 

^‘1 didn’t know they did. If they do they have them- 
selves to blame. For true love is always a divine thing 
of divine meaning and it makes no mistakes. It is be- 
cause young men do not make this great experience in 
life a serious as well as a happy experience, it is because 
they treat it as a sentiment instead of a part of God’s 
thought of them that mistakes are made and unhappy 
marriages result. As I said several weeks ago true love 
is always happy and always lasting. It is your false 
article that disappoints and betrays people.” 

^^Is life worth living?” 

‘^What! Do you young people ask this old question 
so soon? Yes! Yes! It is worth living if you live it 
right. Otherwise I am inclined to think it isn’t worth 
while.” 

"G made a bet over the result of the state election 
and lost. If I pay it I shall lose a large sum of money 
and be unable to pay other bills that I owe for house- 
hold expenses. What is my duty? Ought I to pay the 
money on the debt?” 

'Gn the first place you had no business to bet at all. 
You not only broke a law of the state which expressly 
forbids betting on elections but you became a gambler 


QUESTION CLASS. 


115 


when you made that bet. For a gambler is one who 
tries to get something for nothing out of another man. 
Betting is gambling. It is vicious in principle and im- 
moral in practice. It is the shame of great political 
parties that the very men who control and direct party 
affairs break the laws of the state and set an example 
to all young men to do the same. There is no question 
however as to your duty now that you have bet. Pay 
the money over and never bet again on anything as long 
as you live. It ought to teach you a good lesson if you 
have trouble from all your other obligations. You had 
no right to incur such a risk when you knew the money 
you ought to pay your honest creditors would be endan- 
gered by the chances of a political campaign. Yes, pay 
your bet. ThaPs the only thing for you to do now. 
And let it be the last one you will ever have to pay.’’ 

feel discontented and unhappy and blue a good 
deal of the time. What is the matter with me? How 
can I go to work to be contented and happy?” 

^^Maybe your liver is out of order. Excuse that, if 
it sounds coarse. But the physical is so closely con- 
nected with the spiritual that a good many people are 
cross and discontented because their bodies are diseased. 
If you are healthy and have an average intellect and 
live in the United States and are young, you have no 


116 


JOHN KING’S 


excuse whatever for being discontented and blue and 
unhappy. With all eternity before you, with God in 
history and yourself a part of it, with such endless pos- 
sibilities to make the world better, what earthly excuse 
have you for not living a life of deep satisfaction and 
happiness? Oh, get out of yourself. Do something 
for some one else. Lift on the world to raise it up in- 
stead of bearing down on it with your selfish personal 
unhappiness. If you believe in God and the future and 
the present and your part in the universe, it is wicked 
for you to go through life discontented and unhappy. 
Be someone. Believe in your beliefs with all your 
might. Live like an angel, not like an animal. If you 
are chronically unhappy something is wrong either with 
your body or your soul.’’ 

J ohn King dismissed the class with the promise that 
next week his answers would be shorter so as to read the 
many questions still behind, and the class after a short 
social gathering departed. 

At the wharf of the great steamship company in 
New York one day that week the usual busy scene was 
being presented which always attended the departure 
of a famous ocean traveler. The steamer was just cast- 
ing loose from the slip. The gangway had been pulled 
off, the bow was slowly swinging around, and the people 


QUESTION CLASS. 


117 


on the decks upper and lower were exchanging last fare- 
wells with friends on the slip. Clear up to the extreme 
edge of the wharf the people were massed and back in 
under the cover of it. Some were laughing and smiling. 
Others were crying. One little old woman in a faded 
calico dress with her hands clasped before her was look- 
ing up straight tow^ards a boy who leaned out over the 
rail of the steerage deck. Down the faces of both of 
them, mother and son, the tears were streaming, each 
apparently entirely oblivious of all the other people as 
if they two were the only ones there. A chapter of 
tragic history was in their faces but so it was with many 
others on shore and on the steamer that day. In sharp 
contrast to these two tear stained faces was a laughing 
young girl who stood next the weeping mother, exchang- 
ing last greetings with one of the ship^s stewards, evi- 
dently some familiar acquaintance who had made the 
ocean voyage many times. A little farther along the 
slip seated on one of the piles that projected high above 
the floor of the wharf was an Irishman, evidently a day 
laborer who had come down to see some of his relatives 
off on a visit to the old country. In his hand he held 
an immense bouquet of the most astonishing variety of 
garden flowers arranged apparently by his own hand. 
As the steamer widened the distance between himself 


118 


JOHiY KING^S 


and the dock he threw the bouquet with all his might 
at some person on the steerage deck. In the effort he 
lost his balance and almost fell off the pile into the 
water. A roar of laughter went up from ship and shore. 
Several bouquets were thrown up from the crowd, some 
falling into the water, others lighting on the decks or 
clutched at and caught by countless hands held out 
over the rails. There was a cheer from the crowd. All 
the faces on the slip were looking up now. Those on 
the vessel saw the white, intent, laughing, weeping, 
cheering mass of faces and laughed and wept and looked 
back again. 

Victoria standing on the promenade deck by the side 
of one of the company watched all this as the steamer 
now rapidly swung* her bow around heading down the 
harbor. In a minute the wharf would be lost to sight, 
hid by the steamer. There was not a soul there that she 
knew. She stood looking on as a spectator only. Sud- 
denly close by the extreme end of the slip standing near 
the pile on which the Irishman was seated, Victoria 
caught sight of a familiar face and figure. It was Vic- 
tor dressed as usual in the most exquisite taste and style. 
Victoria screamed out his name. He did not hear or-see 
her. She leaned out over the rail and waved her hand 
and cried again. He turned his head and saw her. She 


QUESTION CLASS. 


119 


could see how the look on his face changed. He called 
to her. Through all the cheering and babel of sounds 
she heard him and her heart leaped to think of the old 
childish days. The steamer swung around and swept- 
the crowd on the wharf out of her sight. She left her 
place and hurried as fast as she could to the stern on the 
other side. But she had to struggle through very many 
people and by the time she caught sight of the wharf 
again the steamer was moving away fast and the distance 
was too great to talk over. The people however stood 
on the wharf a long time. And out on the stern of the 
vessel a little figure in black with unconscious tears run- 
ning down over her face stood with waving handkerchief 
murmuring the prayer, Victor! Dear Victor! Oh, 
how I wanted to see him and speak with him and have 
him kiss me good bye! The good God keep him safe 
until I come back again.’^ 


CHAPTEE VI. 


N the evening of the day that Victoria sailed 
for Liverpool, two gentlemen were dining to- 
gether at a fashionable restaurant on Broad- 
way, New York. 

After the first courses had been eaten and the diners 
"were waiting for the dessert, one of them said to the 
other, ^^Have you heard the new tenor at the Concert 
Halir 

^^No, I have heard of him. Suppose we go and hear 
him this evening.” 

^^Very well. I have heard him once but don’t mind 
going again. The young fellow certainly has a very re- 
markable voice.” 

understand that he is a brother of the violin 
player who has had such a successful season in this 
country and has now gone abroad.” 

‘^Yes, they are twins, I understand. Come of a 
musical family. The father is dissipated, I’ve heard. 
The boy started in to sing in John King’s church, Chi- 
cago.” 



JOHN KINO'S QUESTION CLASS. 


121 


^^Quite a change from John King’s church to the 
new Concert Hall.” 

^^Kot a change for the better morally I should say.” 

^^Well hardly.” The speaker laughed as he took up 
an evening paper and changed the subject by reading 
items of news about town. 

At the hour of the performance at the new Concert 
Hall the two gentlemen went together. They were old 
theater and concert goers and nothing in the evening’s 
program specially interested them. It was not of a 
very refined character and that was the reason probably 
that the large audience, composed mostly of young men 
about town, seemed to enjoy it so much. About the 
middle of the first half of the program Victor came on 
and sang. It was a simple ballad but he sung it ex- 
quisitely. Simply as a complete change from the coarse 
horse play and coarser songs that had preceded him it 
came to the jaded, sated theater-goers like a cup of 
clear cool sweet spring water after a night’s debauch. 
He came back and sang a little piece that had some 
reference in it to Home or Mother. It was astonishing 
to note the effect of it on that mixed audience. Tears 
were to be seen on very many faces. The old man in 
the orchestra who played the bass viol and who had seen 
and heard in his theatrical life-time^ a great deal, wiped 


122 


J0H:N KING’S 


away at his eyes without any attempt at concealment 
from the rest of the players. There was something in 
the voice that touched the sensibilities of the people. 
Something so delicate, so sweetly penetrating, so per- 
suasive, that hearts were moved that had not felt the 
touch of emotion by anything preached or prayed by the 
human voice for many years. 

It was that quality in his voice that made Victor a 
power with audiences. The manager of the new Con- 
cert Hall was shrewd enough to see that the most taking 
songs that Victor could sing were simple ballads with 
sentiment enough in them to appeal to certain common 
feelings. And those were the songs Victor sang. He 
occupied a curious position in the new Concert Hall. 
He was surrounded by a class of people who were for the 
most part coarse and immoral. The place itself was 
frequented by amusement seekers who were of the same 
character. And Victor himself was fast going the down- 
ward road and losing every day in his new life the virtue 
and gentleman purity of soul that Victoria once knew. 
And yet when the evening’s hour for the concert came, 
he sang with a voice like an angel’s, like a spotless sin- 
less seraph, songs that contrasted so completely with 
everything in the rest of the program that for the brief 
five or ten minutes in all that lie appeared, a new spirit 


QUESTION CLASS. 


123 


swept over the restless, thoughtless, swearing, drinking, 
dissipated crowd before him. It was a performance so 
unusual, so striking from its very contrast with the rest 
of the Concert Hall program, that it created much com- 
ment in the city. Gradually new faces appeared at the 
concerts. The people who were ashamed of themselves 
for being found in such rough surroundings came Just 
to hear Victor. And in a short time he was, to the 
gratification of his unbounded vanity, one of the most 
talked about young men in New York. He grew in im- 
portance with himself and with the Concert Hall Man- 
ager and demanded an increase of salary which was 
granted at once. This led to grave results, but first let 
us account for Victor’s change of position from singer in 
St. Mark’s Avenue Cathedral to the New Concert Hall, 
New York. 

When Victoria’s father told her that Victor had 
quarrelled with him he did not tell her all the details 
which led up to the quarrel. In brief they were these. 

Victor had discovered in some way shortly after the 
money was sent to his sister that he was legally entitled 
to a certain sum when he came of age. He had then 
tried to persuade his father to get the money at once. 
It could not be done without swearing falsely as to Vic- 
tor’s age. This the father refused to do. Victor had 


124 


JOHN KING’S 


become passionately angry and reproached his father 
for having sent the money to his sister. In his anger 
he left home threatening never to come back. He had 
lost nearly every cent he possessed in gambling and in 
lottery tickets. He was desperate and out of humor 
with the world. That was one reason he would not 
write Victoria after she had written that she could not 
let him have any more money until he could use it right. 
He had only one thing that was of any real value and 
that was his voice. It was a natural gift, so remarkable 
that training and practice simply gave it larger oppor- 
tunity. About this time the manager of the new Con- 
cert Hall, New York, happened to be in Chicago and 
heard Victor one evening at St. Mark’s Avenue. He was 
deeply impressed with the possibilities of such a voice 
for concert-hall work. He at once made advances to 
Victor to come to New York and sing regularly there. 
Victor in his depressed and bankrupt condition eagerly 
accepted the terms offered although they were only a 
little better than those he was offered by the church 
people. He was angry with his father, with Victoria, 
and with the world in' general. He wanted to get away, 
and so in a few weeks he was in New York and the suc- 
cess of his engagement there was unmistakable from the 
beginning. The afternoon that Victoria sailed for 


QUESTION CLASS, 


125 


Liverpool, Victor had come down to see some acquaint- 
ances who were sailing by the same vessel. They had 
been members of the concert-hall company and were 
going to join other players in London for a brief season. 
Victor had not known anything of Victoria’s move- 
ments. When he heard his name called that day it 
came to him with a startling strangeness. Then he had 
looked up and seen his sister. The next instance the 
vessel had swung Victoria out of view. He was hedged 
in by the people on the wharf and could not move. 
And yet at that moment all the old love for Victoria 
flamed back and he would have given his voice, almost, 
for an opportunity to speak to her. When the figure of 
Victoria again came in view the distance was too great. 
He waved his hand. There were also in his heart 
mingled feelings of shame and regret and vain resolves. 
He knew the life he was living would shock her unspeak- 
ably if she knew. When the crowd at last began to 
leave the wharf he walked away by himself and thought 
regretfully of old times when he could look Victoria in 
the face lovingly and without concealment. And yet 
such is the power of passion, that very night, after the 
concert was over, found Victor in one of the most noted 
gambling clubs in New York, his whole life absorbed 
in the chances of the dice. Poor soul! What a choice 


12G 


JOHN KING’S 


you have made! What a master you have elected to 
serve! 

The evening of the question class had come around 
and Tom and Kichard were taking tea with John King. 
They were talking over people and things in a very in- 
formal way when Kichard said suddenly, ''By the 
way, what has become of that young tenor singer who 
made such a stir for a while here? He came to 
the class one night. I haven’t seen or heard of him 
since.” 

Richard had been out of the city a good deal and had 
not kept track of all the news. 

"Why, don’t you know? He is in New York sing- 
ing in a concert-hall there.” 

"What do you know about him, Tom?” John King 
asked gravely. 

"One of my newspaper friends there wrote me the 
other day that he saw Stanw’ood in a big gambling club 
one night. He is going the way he started here.” 

"What a pity! what a pity! And such a gift as he 
has. I can remember the effect of his singing in the 
church. ^ I never knew a more remarkable result to fol- 
low the singing of a song. I have seen tears flowing 
down the faces of people in church '^who were never 
Jvnown to shed a tear on any other occasion. And yet 


QUESTION CLASS. 


127 


the boy himself never felt the real truth of what he 
sang.’’ 

^^How do you account for that, sir?” asked Tom. 

J ohn King was silent a minute. 

don’t account for it. I only know that people 
were moved by the tones of his voice to a temporary 
emotion that expressed itself strongly. I don’t think 
the result was ever very permanent. That is, it never 
led to any great change in people’s lives that I am 
aware of. But for the time being the effect was cer- 
tainly very powerful. I feel sorry for the father and 
sister.” 

^^The violinist? You remember, Dick, we heard her 
play the night of her debut.” 

^^Yes. The playing was very much like the singing. 
Only it was even better. The girl played with her soul. 
The boy sang with his voice.” 

^^The effect on the audience was the same.” 

^^Kot quite. I believe there was a difference. The 
voice had the advantage in being alive. But the instru- 
ment somehow seemed to have more to say. At least 
that was the impression I received.” 

The talk branched out into a discussion on the art 
and office of music of which all three, especially King, 
were passionately fond. Then the members of the class 


128 


JOim KING’S 


began to arrive after tea and the two large front rooms 
filled up with animated talk. 

^‘1 wish my question might be answered to-night/’ 
said Miss Fergus who in spite of her assertion that she 
had nothing in the world to do was very prompt and 
regular in her attendance on the Question Class. 

^^What is your question?” asked Tom. 

^^As if I should tell!” 

shall know anyhow when John King reads it. I 
can tell the authors of almost all the questions by this 
time.” 

^^You can’t guess what mine is, I know,” replied Miss 
Fergus confidently. 

^^Didn’t you put in that question last week^ Ts Life 
worth living?’ ” 

^^Well, what if I did. Anyone might have asked it.” 

^^And that other one, ^Does it pay to be unselfish?’ ” 
refuse to be examined in such a — ” 
knew that was yours. Miss Fergus,” chuckled 
Tom. am a mind reader. There is a certain style 
of question that certain people always ask if they ask 
any.” 

Miss Fergus was about to reply when John King 
broke in good naturedly, 

^^Kow Tom, you are always teasing Miss Fergus. I 


QUESTION CLASS. 


129 


feel like taking her part and I don’t believe you can tell 
what her question is if we come to it to-night. It is a 
good question and it gave me a hard day’s work.” 

^^Thank you.” Miss Fergus beamed in triumph and 
Tom pretended to feel crushed. 

^‘1 shall cough and say ^ahem’ when your question 
comes up,” he said. ^^You will know by the signal that 
I recognized the earmarks of your mind,” Tom contin- 
ued, mixing his metaphors recklessly. 

John King smiled as if he thought Tom had prom- 
ised more than he could do and as time had come to be- 
gin he called the class to order and began the reading 
rapidly. 

Question. ^^Do you think foot ball is a good game 
for college students to play?” 

“There are so many of the University boys here to- 
night,” said John King looking around cautiously, “that 
I feel as if it would be more healthy for me to say yes. 
I shall say yes with proper qualifications. You 
know very well that I believe in doing everything to the 
glory of God. It does not make any difference whether 
it is teaching a Sunday School Class, preaching a sermon 
or playing foot ball. There is a great opportunity in a 
game of foot ball to develop courage, evenness of temper, 
quickness, generalship, in short very many of the best 


130 


A'JiVG'^S’ 


qualities necessary to help a young man in the struggle 
of life. Some of the most promising, useful young men 
in the ministry, in medicine, in law, in business, that I 
know are men who took an active healthy Christian part 
in athletics while in college. A game of foot ball can 
be played by twenty-two Christian students in such a 
way as to be of great benefit to them. Yes, I think it 
is a good game for college students to play under these 
conditions. When it is made a professional exhibition 
for Thanksgiving day or made the occasion for gambling 
or betting or abused with brutality I condemn it as 
a college sport. But as a game in itself as it can be 
played and is played in many Christian colleges I believe 
in it.’’ 

Question. ^^Do you think it is wrong to dance?” 

^^Not if you dance to the glory of God. ^Therefore 
whether ye eat or drink or whatsoever ye do, do all to 
the glory of God.’ If you can dance in accordance with 
that standard of human life go ahead. If it is impos- 
sible for you to dance and remain a pure happy growing 
Christian and if you feel that the dancing is keeping 
you and others from the Christian life of growth and 
usefulness then it is wrong for you. But does any one 
think he can dance to the glory of God?” 

Question. know a girl who does housework for 


QUESTION CLASS. 


131 


a living. She is honest and intelligent. She belongs to 
a church and is a faithful member. She gives a thou- 
sand times more towards the support of the church serv- 
ices in proportion to her means than the rich banker 
who is also a member of the same churchi Yet she is 
snubbed by the other girls in the church and Sunday 
School and is not invited out to socials or parties be- 
cause she is a house servant. Do you think such action 
is Christian? Do you think the girl ought to do some- 
thing else in order to gain the friendship of the other 
girls in the church?” 

‘^No. In answer to both questions. The action of 
the other girls is pagan. There is no Christianity in it 
anywhere. But I do not believe the girl ought to do 
something else to gain their friendship. The friendship 
of such girls cannot be worth much if it is based on the 
condition of belonging to the same circle so far as an 
occupation is concerned. Honest labor is worthy of re- 
spect anywhere from anyone. There is no reason why 
a girl who works in a kitchen as a servant should not be 
treated with the same courtesy and regard if she is 
worthy of it, as the girl who makes her living in an office 
with a typewriter or behind a counter selling gloves or 
ribbons. One of Christ’s most intimate friends was a 
woman who did daily work in the kitchen. Those per- 


132 


J0//2\r KING^S 


sons who disdain or despise another on account of the 
work they do for a living are very much in need of con- 
version, even if their names are on the church roll as 
members. They may be members of the church but 
they are not true disciples of the humble Carpenter of 
Nazareth who took upon himself the form of a servant 
and did the commonest acts of service that men ever 
perform in this earthly life.” 

Question. 'T have always had a great longing to 
go on the stage and be an actress. Is that longing 
wicked? Haven’t I a right to the life of an actress if 
that is what I was intended for?” 

^^Yes. The Lord wants us to be what we were in- 
tended for. It is one thingj however, to long to be an 
actress and another thing to be one. Perhaps no public 
career calls for more courage or physical endurance and 
intellectual gifts of a high order than the life of an 
actress. I am speaking of course of one who has the 
highest possible view of a profession. Doing it all like 
anything else to the glory of God. There have been 
some good examples of devout Christian w^omen who 
have made the stage a profession. Charlotte Cushman 
was one of them. If all the actresses had her nobility 
of purpose and performance, going to the theater would 
be almost as religious and spiritual a duty as going to 


QUESTION CLASS. 


133 


the prayer meeting or a church service. If you are sure 
the Lord designed you to go on the stage, by all means 
go on. Perhaps after trying it you will find the public 
is not so convinced of your ability as you are. But in 
any case if you are convinced that you were intended to 
he an actress remember it was the Lord’s design that 
first of all you should be a noble, pure, true, unselfish 
Christian woman. If you can he all that and make act- 
ing your life work there is no doubt you ought to be an 
actress. But can you he an actress to the glory of God?” 

Question. ^^Do you think it pays a boy to work his 
way through college?” 

^^Depends something on the boy. If he has the stuff 
in him and is bound to go through college and get a 
thorough education he will generally do it. And when 
he gets to be a man he will always tell you it paid. I 
never knew a man who had worked his way through 
college, say that he was sorry. Of course it does not pay 
to break down in health trying to get through college. 
That is a had investment. But supposing a boy has 
good health and other advantages, it pays to work 
his way through college. He will say so to himself 
when he graduates and goes out into the world.” 

Question. ^^Do you believe in a personal devil? 
And if so why?” • 


134 


JOHN KING\^ 


do. I never saw him but I believe in him. 
Why? Because I believe the Bible teaches us some- 
thing more than an abstract impersonal influence called 
evil. Then I find a certain mental relief in thinking of 
a live being whom I am fighting. Those are a few of 
my reasons for believing as I do.’’ 

Question. ^^You have said so often that everything 
we do should be done to the glory of God. Aren’t there 
some things we can do, without having anything to do 
with the glory of God and still be good Christians?” 

^^Name some of them.” 

John King looked over the room and as he some- 
times, not often, did, he threw the question open for 
general discussion. Tom suggested in rather a subdued 
voice for him, ^^Mathematics.” 

^^Well, if you do mathematics so as to know more, or 
to learn habits of exactness and discipline, may it not be 
to the glory of Him who has made for the first law of 
heaven, according to one great man, order?” 

‘T don’t see where practicing the piano or washing 
dishes or making bread or any of those things has any- 
thing to do with glorifying God,” said one of the class, 
a matter of fact girl who evidently disliked the things 
she mentioned. 

^^And yet there is a right and a wrong spirit to pos- 


QUESTION CLASS, 


135 


sess in doing even the common tasks of daily drudgery. 
A girl may wash dishes in a temper and injure herself 
in character seriously. I remember reading somewhere 
of a servant who lost a very valuable position in a noble- 
man’s house because in a fit of impatience while washing 
dishes one day she broke a piece of china that had been 
in the family two hundred years. I have never forgotten 
the lesson which that little story impressed on my child- 
hood imagination. If she had been doing her drudgery 
to the glory of God she would probably have been happy 
and careful in her work. It is so with anything. 
Pianos can be practiced, bread can be made, everything 
done as a part of life all of which is in the loving care 
and sympathy of God. Life is not divided up into the 
things that belong to God and the things that he has no 
interest in or right to. It all belongs to him. That is 
the true teaching of Christianity. That is what lies at 
the foundation of all society and of all individual life 
worth having. It is loving God and our neighbor with 
all the heart, mind, soul and strength that makes the 
exact difference between paganism and Christianity, be- 
tween Sunday religion and every day religion.” 

Question. ^^What would you say to a young man 
who had begun to smoke cigarettes?” 

“1 would say don’t. If I was a girl and the young 


136 


JOHN KING^S 


man thought a good deal of me I would tell him I could 
not endure such a habit in any friend of mine and if he 
thought I didn’t mean it I would use my privilege as a 
woman to make him know that I did, mean it.” 

Question. ^^Why is it that two boys brought up in 
equally good families with the same advantages and 
privileges will grow up to he so entirely different. One 
of them is gentle, courteous, refined, gentlemanly. The 
other ties tin cans to dogs’ tails, tortures dumb animals, 
plagues his sisters, bullies other and smaller boys and 
creates a small riot wherever he goes. And yet both 
boys are the product of Christian civilization and their 
surroundings seem to be about the same.” 

^^But probably their surroundings are not at all the 
same. I cannot answer your question without knowing 
something about the ancestry and home training of these 
boys. They take after their great grandfathers as much 
perhaps as after their own parents. The question of 
heredity comes in and cuts a large figure in any such 
question.” 

Question. ^^Don’t you think people who do what 
they please have a more comfortable time than the folks 
who are always asking themselves Ts this right? Is this 
to the glory of God?’ ” 

'‘They miss a great deal of struggle and a good deal 


QUESTION CLASS^ 


137 


of Tesponsibility. Yes, I don’t know but they seem to 
be more comfortable for the time being. But we don't 
see the end from the beginning. A man may have a 
pretty comfortable time in this world who does what he 
pleases and never asks himself ^Is this right? Is it to 
the glory of God?’ But there is another world coming 
and the man will have to face that. We shall all have 
to be judged for the deeds done in the body on the basis 
of whether they were good or bad. The uncomfortable 
time will come to the man then. I don’t know 
as we can say that a man has led a comfortable or an un- 
comfortable existence until we get to the Judgment. 
That will decide it very plainly. And even here in this 
w’orld I never can believe that, take it all the year 
around, the bad or the immoral or careless man can be 
happier than the man who tries to do right and asks be- 
fore he does anything Ts it right?’ It is fun to do 
right. There is peace and happiness in being good and 
making life happy for other people. Selfish people are 
not happy. They escape a good many responsibilities. 
But they don’t know the deepest joys of life.” 

Question. ^^Do you believe the time will come when 
woman suffrage will be the law of the United States?” 

^^Yes.” 

Question. “If it is excusable in my brother to smoke 


138 


JOB'N KING^S 


and drink and swear and do about as he pleases why 
should not society allow me, his sister, to do the same 
thing and excuse me?” 

^^Your brother is no more excusable for doing those 
things than you would be, and society has no right to 
make any distinction between an evil life lived by a man 
and an evil life lived by a woman. Both should be 
judged by exactly the same standard.” 

Question. ^‘1 don’t like to go to the church prayer 
meeting but I go from a sense of duty. Do you think 
I ought to go feeling that way?” 

^^ISTo. You ought to enjoy it. What is the matter? 
Is the minister dull and poky? Are the subjects talked 
about uninteresting? Are the prayers long and dried 
up? Could you do anything yourself to make the meet- 
ing pleasanter? Have you ever tried that? Or do you 
go to prayer meeting to be entertained and so feel per- 
sonally disappointed because you are not? I don’t like 
the idea of doing so many things because one ought to 
do them. If they are right and good there ought to be 
pleasure in them. A prayer meeting is the last place 
in the world to attend from a sense of duty. If it is not a 
pleasure I doubt the benefit you get from it.” 

Question. ^^Is the world growing better or worse?” 

^^Ahem!” coughed Tom looking over towards Miss 


QUEiiTION CLASS. 


139 


Fergvis. She colored as if she felt annoyed at first, 
then she smiled and finally in her careless, good- 
humored way she laughed. The class did not know 
what the joke was, but John King suddenly threw the 
question down, saying, don’t feel like trying to 
answer this now. It is getting late. Tom, you are 
wrong. I am the only person besides the questioner 
who knows the author of the question. I want ten of 
you to bring answers of one sentence each, next week. 
Five of the young men may give a sentence to show that 
the world is growing better and five of the young women 
a sentence each to show that it is getting worse. I shall 
have to get to my work again now. Good night to you 
all!” And the class after selecting the ten members to 
bring in the sentences, departed, anticipating the com- 
ing Monday and discussing the probable sentences. It 
was like John King to confine each one to a sentence. 
That would compel the deepest thought and concentra- 
tion. 

Victoria was in London at last. She had seen Par- 
liament buildings and Westminister Abbey, had heard 
the roar of the Strand and gazed upon Kelson’s Monu- 
ment and St. Paul’s and London Bridge and had gone 
as far on the Thames as the Tower and Richmond. 

Most of her time however was fully occupied with 


140 


joh:n king^s 


rehearsals and concerts. She was like all true artists, 
very conscientious and painstaking. She practiced three 
or four hours a day. Her public appearance had been 
greeted with great enthusiasm. She had instantly be- 
come a favorite. The manager was highly gratified. 
And Victoria felt pleased to think that she was doing 
her part to make the trip a success. After two weeks 
in London the company would go to Berlin and Paris, 
then back to England for a tour through the country 
towns, closing with London again. 

At this time in her life Victoria was very happy. 
If it had not been for her sorrow at the thought of Vic- 
tor she would have been, she told herself, the happiest 
person in all London. She wrote to Victor, getting his 
address from notices of theatrical news printed in the 
papers. She hoped to hear from him by the time she 
was in Berlin. 

It was next to the last night in London that Vic- 
toria, coming off the stage after an encore, was sitting 
in the green room quietly as her usual custom was, 
going over her next music score, for she was on the 
program near the close, when she heard some one men- 
tion her name, ^^Stanwood.” 

Two English musicians who had been engaged to 
play in a Cantata given by the manager were in a 


QUESTION CLASS. 


141 


corner of the green room talking over items in an 
evening paper which one of them had brought to 
the hall with him. Victoria caught the words Vic- 
tor/^ ^^New Concert Hall/’ ^^New York/’ ^^Sensation/’ 
^Torgery/’ ^^Arrest/’ and she went over to where the 
players were and said, trembling, ^YVill you let me see 
the paper?” 

One of the men with a stammering apology handed 
it to her saying, ^^Too bad. Miss Stanwood. Ton honor, 
we never thought you were here.” 

Victoria had no difficulty in finding the article in 
reference to Victor. Under large head lines it read 
somewhat as follows: 

^Tast evening just as Victor Stanwood, the well- 
known tenor at the New Concert Hall, was about to 
go on for his part in the program he was arrested on 
a charge of forgery. He resisted the arrest and seri- 
ously wounded the officer. He was overcome and 
landed in the Tombs at just about the time he ordi- 
narily bows his acknowledgements for an encore. The 
affair has created a sensation among the Concert Hall 
people. It is claimed that young Stanwood forged a 
check on the manager. The details have not been made 
known.” 

Victoria read it through and then sat down. She 


142 


JOra KING’S QUESTION CLASS, 


handed the paper back and paid no attention to the 
continued apologies of the confused jdayers. She 
would have to go on the stage again soon. And Vic- 
tor! The dearest person in the world to her was at 
that moment in a felon’s position and possibly the 
man he had wounded would die and then — she shut out 
the thought as her heart beat wildly. The persons and 
things in the green room appeared unreal to her. She 
sat thus in perfect quiet, outwardly, it seemed to her 
for hours. Finally she was summoned for her turn 
and mechanically she rose with her violin and the next 
moment she was out on the stage, faces of people all 
about her, and the intent, eager, pleased looks every- 
where of those who expect to hear the music of a master. 


CHAPTER VII. 


S Victoria began to play, the people felt a thrill 
of emotion as distinct and real as a shock 
from an electric battery. She had been play- 
ing now in London for two weeks. Every performance 
added to her popularity. Even in that great brick and 
mortar wilderness where every variety of music and 
every representative of the best in music and art and 
literature could be found daily and nightly for the pleas- 
ure seeker, Victoria held a place all her own. 

Never had she played as she did tonight after the 
news of Victor’s arrest and imprisonment. She came 
upon the stage with a great cry in her soul for help, 
for comfort, for consolation. The blow had come to 
her so suddenly she had not time to understand all its 
meaning. The minute she touched her instrument she 
seemed to ask it to satisfy her longing for deliverance. 
It breathed prayer for Victor and for herself. It sang 
to her hope and future peace. It is doubtful if dur- 
ing the ten minutes she was playing on that occasion 
Victoria was conscious of a soul in the world except 
herself and the spirit of the music. The selection 



144 


JOHU KING>8 


happened to be exactly in keeping with her troubled 
mood. But even if it had not been, it is probable 
she would have played anything with the same spirit 
of desire. No one but a music lover could under- 
stand what all this meant and the audience contained 
hundreds of beating sympathetic hearts that entered 
into the performance without knowing what occasioned 
it. 

Victoria walked off the stage like a person in her 
sleep and as she disappeared the perfect silence was 
broken by applause so hearty and continuous that all 
the players and singers behind the scenes caught it up 
and Victoria in the saddest moment of her life was 
surrounded by the greatest expression of admiration 
and delight she had ever heard. She paid no atten- 
tion, however. Her attitude was listless and depressed. 
She sat down and made no movement to go on again, 
although the demand for her reappearance grew more 
and more urgent. 

The manager, who had been out during the first 
part of the program, had come in just in time to hear 
Victoria. He was astonished at her performance. He 
now" came up to her and said, 

^‘Miss Stanwood, the audience wall not be satisfied 
after that unless you go on again.’^ 


QUESTION CLASS. 


145 


Victoria looked up and replied, cannot go on 
again. I am not well.” Instantly her mind had gone 
back to the first concert when she and Victor had made 
their first public appearance and she had refused to 
reply to an encore because the audience had not called 
Victor back. She felt in the same attitude now, only 
from a far different reason. She had played all she 
could that evening. She felt as if she could never 
touch her violin again. And if she had known that 
her connection with the company would cease that very 
moment she would not have gone before the audience 
again that evening. 

The manager instantly saw that something was 
wrong. Victoria had always been extremely courteous 
and gracious to her audience and her refusal to ap- 
pear now was due to something serious. 

^^Are you ill?” the manager asked quickly. 

^^Yes, yes, I cannot play any more.” Victoria 
drew off into a corner of the green room and sat with 
her face in her hands. Some of the concert company 
gathered around her while the manager stepped out 
upon the stage. At sight of him the applause ceased. 

^^Ladies and gentlemen,” announced the manager, 
‘‘Miss Stanwood has been suddenly taken ill. I regret 
that she cannot appear again this evening.” 


146 


J0E2f Kim^s 


There were many expressions of regret from the 
audience hut the concert drew to a close and Victoria 
did not come on again. 

Next day at her hotel in the presence of the man« 
ager and his wife, Victoria told them the news that 
she had received concerning Victor. The morning pa- 
pers contained the same account, with the additional 
item that the officer who was wounded while making 
the arrest was in a critical condition. There were also 
some details concerning the forgery. The amount forged 
was two thousand dollars and the manager of the New 
Concert Hall was the loser to that amount, as Victor 
before his arrest had lost the entire sum in gambling. 

Victoria was in an agony of shame and trouble, but 
the matter was public now and she talked it over with 
the manager with little attempt to conceal her real 
feelings. After all, she was highly emotional, though 
not nervous or hysterical. 

^^Two thousand dollars is a good sized sum for a 
boy like that to get away with so soon,” said the man- 
ager. 

^^He gambles.” Victoria said the words with a shud- 
der. The manager had guessed as much, long before. 
He appeared very thoughtful over something but said 
little. 


QUESTION CLASS. 


147 


Victoria closed her London engagement that night 
and looked forward with relief to the trip on the con- 
tinent. The company went over to Paris and it was 
while there that news came in fragmentary ways of 
Victors trial and conviction. The wounded man re- 
covered. Victor was spared the charge of murder in 
addition to forgery. The sentence was for three years 
and Victoria wondered if her brother would not kill 
himself or commit some dreadful act before he would 
allow them to put him into the prison garb. It seemed 
so horrible to her she could not believe it. It was 
not until long after that she learned how Victor had 
gone down so fast. The recital of it in detail would 
be a story by itself. She wrote to him after he was 
in prison. She never received replies. The chaplain, 
who at that time was a man of great good sense and 
knowledge of human nature, wrote her once or twice 
concerning him. There was little to say. Victor was 
strangely quiet and made no trouble. The chaplain 
said that in response to Victoria’s desire to come and 
see him when she returned to America, Victor had not 
expressed either willingness or refusal to see her. 

So Victoria with the sorrow of her life borne in 
the agony of self restraint went on with her work, and 
music was her salvation. Paris was a delight to her. 


148 


JOHN KING’S 


Berlin also. There were wonderful things to be seen 
in those cities. With all her sight seeing she contin- 
ued true to her custom of visiting on every occasion 
the needy and suffering souls in the hospitals and asy- 
lums of those cities. The French and German hos- 
pitals for incurables heard the best music that had been 
heard for many years and many a foreign tongue in 
the long white wards blessed the little figure in black 
as it quietly and lovingly bent over the instrument and 
made it do its wonderful work of soothing nervous 
pains or lifting the depressed mind into a heaven of 
relief. Victoria always thought she played better in 
a hospital than anywhere else. It is certain that there 
w^as a quality about it that was lacking in her bril- 
liant playing before great or fashionable audiences. 
Ugo Bassi has said that ^^God’s angels watch over the 
strong and well while they sleep, but God himself 
w^atches at the bedside of the suffering souls who lie 
awake from pain.” So Victoria seemed to give more 
of herself to the weak and sorrowful than to the pow- 
erful and happy. 

After the return to London and a successful season 
there, the company sailed for New York. Victoria’s 
reputation was well established and the manager on 
the way home made her a proposition to become a mem- 


QUESTION CLASS. 


149 


ber of a permanent symphony orchestra to be estab- 
lished and located in Chicago. The terms were liberal 
beyond Victoria’s asking and she rejoiced as she ac- 
cepted them at the thought that she could have a 
home with her father and perhaps recover him, under 
new and better home surroundings, from his degra- 
dation. 

But there was one duty before her which she must 
perform before she went back to her old home. She 
must go and see Victor. The anticipation of that visit 
to the State Prison haunted her all through the ocean 
trip. Every day as the vessel swung through its in- 
visible ocean track, unerringly pointing its bow towards 
the western continent, Victoria sat looking out over 
the mysterious deep of changing color and movement 
and she could not shut out the sight of Victor in the 
dress of a felon. She could not forget the vanity of 
the boy that had always shown itself in refinements 
of apparel. And she could not help believing that 
one of the most exquisite tortures to a mind like Vic- 
tor’s must be, not the shame of having committed a 
felony, but the shame of wearing the clothing of a 
common convict. 

When the voyage was over, Victoria at once made 
her arrangements to go out to the prison. She reached 


150 


JOHN KING^S 


the place on Saturday and at once went to the warden’s 
office and made known her errand. 

The chaplain was present and was struck at once 
with the sight of the face and manner of the little 
woman whose name had become known so well in the 
musical world. He at once told her very frankly all 
he knew about Victor. 

^To tell you the exact truth, Miss Stanwood, I am 
puzzled to know what to say about your brother. He 
gives no trouble but he will not talk. I doubt if he 
will want to see you.” 

see me!” Victoria controlled herself with 
difficulty. ^^Does he think I love him any less for his — ” 

^‘1 do not know, but whenever I have tried to men- 
tion your name or have given him your letters he has 
been as cold and unfeeling outwardly as a piece of 
stone.” 

^^0 Victor! Victor!” Victoria cried. She sat there 
in the warden’s office where so much that was sinful 
and heartbreaking had come in and gone out all the 
years, and her cry of anguish went to add its burden 
to the rest. The chaplam was deeply moved. 

“Go and tell him I want to see him!” she added 
after a pause. “I must see him! He is my brother. 
We were so close to each other once.” 


QUESTION CLASS. 


151 


The chaplain went into the prison and was gone a 
long time. Victoria waited for him in the office. She 
thought he would never come back. Finally he re- 
turned with a grave and sorrowful look on his sym- 
pathetic face. 

^^Miss Stanwood, your brother refuses to see you. 
He says he would sooner die than have you look upon 
him. I received permission to let him come clothed 
in citizen’s clothes, but he declares he will not see you 
under any circumstances.” 

Victoria received the news in silence. Then she 
said faintly, ‘T must go without seeing him. Tell him 
I love him as always. Sometime he will know that. 
He—” 

She was going out when the chaplain suddenly spoke 
again. 

^^Miss Stanwood, I know something of your disap- 
pointment and sorrow at this. It is possible that he 
may relent or change. Cannot you wait over Sunday?” 

Victoria hesitated. 

will do as you think best. Of course I will wait 
if there is any possibility.” 

The chaplain thoughtfully looked at her. have 
a request to make of you then. Miss Stanwood. It 
may seem bold and unfeeling at this time, but of 


152 


JOM KING’S 


course I know of your custom in playing on Sunday 
at the hospitals and asylums. Could you — would it 
be asking what you cannot do, to play at our services 
tomorrow?” 

I Victoria looked up with a flush of emotion. 

^^Will Victor be present then?” 

^^Yes, he sings in the chapel choir. That is one of 
the strange things about his case. I do not think he 
has spoken a word to any inmate of the prison in all 
the time he has been here. But from the beginning 
he has sung. The doctor, who has made a special 
study of his case, says it is the one thing that has 
kept him from going insane. I do not know. It is 
very peculiar.” 

Victoria replied simply, ^‘^Yes, I will play.” She 
saw a possibility of touching Victor. Her longing to 
see him and tell him her love for him was greater than 
any other feeling. Besides, Victoria had never allowed 
her own troubles or sorrows to hinder her use of the 
instrument for other people’s comfort. She was never 
selfish in her troubles. 

So the next afternoon Victoria came upon the 
chapel platform with the chaplain and sat down just 
as the prisoners were filing in to their seats. There 
was a row of Chrysanthemums on the platform and 


QUESTION CLASS. 


153 


behind it the slender figure of Victoria was almost hid- 
den, but she could see better than she was seen, and 
she watched the prisoners with a fascination that was 
horrible to her. The men marched in by squads and 
took their places very quietly. There were nearly a 
thousand of them. It was a terrible sight to her to 
think of all that life, most of it under forty years of 
age, stamped with the curse of banishment from the 
world for the transgression of man’s law and God’s 
will. She could not keep her eyes off the place where 
the choir sat, which was a little gallery almost oppo- 
site the chaplain’s platform and screened by a curtain 
drawn part way up. When the prisoners below were 
all seated, a dozen men walked into the little gallery. 
Victoria shut her eyes and sank down, then she opened 
them and looked. At the distance across the chapel, 
which was an immense room, she could not distinguish 
Victor^s face at first. Then she saw him seated as far 
apart from the others as possible. His eyes were gaz- 
ing down and during the entire service, which began 
at one©, he did not once raise them. Evidently he did 
not know that Victoria was there. The chaplain had 
not told any one for reasons of his own. 

After a brief sermon the choir rose to sing. It 
was a remarkable performance even to Victoria, who 


154 


JOHN KING’S 


had heard the best music abroad. The men’s voices 
were well trained, and if lacking in technical skill, still 
were sympathetic and well balanced. Victor’s voice 
was clear and sweet as ever. But it was not until a 
solo part was taken up by him that Victoria realized 
the wonderful quality of tone power possessed by him. 
The hardened, brutal, stolid faces, nearly a thousand 
of them down there, representing almost every crime 
on the calendar, began to soften. As Victor sang on, 
some of the men bowed their heads on the rail in 
front of them. Others, older men, sat bolt upright 
with no attempt to conceal or brush away the tears 
that rolled over their coarse, crime-stained faces. Truly 
John King was right when he said, ^^What a pity! 
What a pity! That such power should be so abused 
by not being consecrated!” And Victor was certainly 
conscious of his supremacy over the emotions of those 
sinful men. Perhaps that was the motive that ruled 
his singing there every Sunday. The old vanity lived in 
him strongly yet, in spite of his shame. 

It was certainly an inspiration on Victoria’s part 
that the instant the choir had finished and sat down 
she arose and began to play. It was the place in the 
service for her but she had not arranged to begin as 
she did until she caught the idea from the selection 


QUESTION CLASS. 


155 


given by the choir. It was an anthem familiar to her, 
and the choir had given but one part of it, closing with 
Victor^s solo and a brief refrain by all the voices. 
Upon the last note of this refrain Victoria began and 
with her own interpretation of the remainder of the 
music she swept on into a strain of perfect harmony, 
strong, pure, sustained. It was almost as if an angel 
chorus had suddenly appeared to preach to these lost, 
sinful men the tidings of forgiveness and eternal peace. 

With the first note of the violin Victor had started 
up. He at once sat down again. His face trembled. 
He shook like one with the ague. Then he sat straight 
up and looked before him, every semblance of life driven 
out of his deathly look. The music poured out over 
the heads of those lost souls in the pit below him and 
every time the bow swept over the strings it seemed 
to tear his heart out of his bosom. Finally, he could 
bear it no longer. He started to his feet, stretched 
out his arms over the railing and cried out with a voice 
that was like the cry of a lost angel speaking from the 
borders of hell up to the ramparts of paradise — 

^^Victoria! Victoria!” 

The bow fell all across the violin as the music broke 
and Victoria standing there with a sob in her heart 
and the tear on her cheek, oblivious of every one ex- 


150 


JOm^ KING’S 


cept her brother, cried out to him across that living 
gulf of sin that separated them, ^^Victor! Victor! I 
love you!” 

Back in the little gallery there was an instant com- 
motion as Victor staggered and then fell forward in 
a faint over the railing. The chaplain dismissed the 
prisoners, who had sat in astonished emotion during 
this brief but sensational scene. With Victoria he 
went at once to the side of Victor. He was uncon- 
scious. They bore him into the prison hospital and 
that Sunday evening found Victoria sitting at the bed- 
side of that erring soul as he lay in stupor. He had 
not recognized her since he fainted. He lay with his 
eyes closed and face turned towards the wall. And 
Victoria sat there praying that God would give him 
back to her. The doctor and the chaplain both came 
in several times before midnight. Near that time, 
while Victoria was left alone with him and no one 
else was within hearing distance, Victor suddenly turned 
and seized his sister’s hand. 

'"Vi,” he whispered, 'Tam a lost soul. I am 
living in hell already. It is no use. I can’t be 
saved. I have suffered the tortures of the damned 
already.” 

"Hush, hush, Victor! God is good.” 


QUESTION CLASS. 


157 


^‘Not in this place. There is no God here. Nor 
anywhere.” 

Victoria leaned over and laid her cheek against Vic- 
tor’s. She could not talk. She could not pray. She 
did what was the only thing left her to do. She made 
Victor feel her love for him. 

He grew quiet and slept after awhile. In the morn- 
ing he was sufficiently recovered to be able to go back 
into his cell. He insisted on this although the doc- 
tor said he might remain in the hospital. He parted 
with Victoria with more emotion than he had yet shown. 

shall die here,” he said as he let Victoria kiss 
him. ^‘^Or go mad. I almost did yesterday.” 

^^Tell me, Victor!” cried Victoria as she clung to 
him sobbing, ‘^^Do you love me?” 

^^Yes,” said Victor, but no tear revealed any emo- 
tion. ^Y"es, Vi, but my heart is dead. It will be bet- 
ter for you when my body goes wdth it.” 

^^No, no, Victor, you are young. You have a gift 
of God. You must live in hope.” She gave him one 
last kiss and embrace and he left her there, and with 
a heavy heart she went on her way to her father. Ah! 
sinful passion of the soul of man! T\Tiat desolation is 
wrouglit by the selfishness of one disobedient heart! 
Truly the wages of sin is death. And it is a death 


158 


JOLl^ 


that lays its ruin on the dearest and the fairest and 
most tender objects of our affection. 

The question class at John King’s came in on the 
Monday night that had been the date for the sentences 
on the worse or better condition of the world, with a 
good deal of curiosity to hear the result of the week’s 
thought on the question, ^Ts the world growing better 
or worse?” According to the minister’s direction five 
of the class were to bring a sentence each, to prove 
that the world was growing worse, and five others to 
bring one sentence each to prove that it was growing 
better. 

^‘1 have the sentences all here in my hand and I 
will read them now before we take up the other ques- 
tions,” John King said. ^‘1 will read the worse ques- 
tions first. You remember the young women furnished 
this side of the answers to the questions.” 

1. The world is growing worse because woman 
suffrage was defeated at the last general election. 

^^That,” commented John King with his usual good 
nature, ‘‘Is what might truly be called a woman’s rea- 
son.” 

2. The world is growing worse because there are 
more diseases known to medical science than there were 
^ver before and especially in what is called civilization. 


QUESTION CLASS. 


159 


3. The world is growing worse because the love 
of money was never so widespread as it is today. 

^^How does she know that?” asked Tom. 

^Tlease excuse the interruption,” continued John 

V 

King. did not mean it.” 

The class laughed at Tom’s expense and King went 
on. 

4. The world is growing worse because crime and 
criminals are steadily on the increase in the best coun- 
try on the globe, that is, in the United States. 

5. The world is growing worse because that is 
what it must do, to fulfill the prophecies of the 
Bible, which declare that wicked men and seducers 
shall wax worse and worse deceiving and being 
deceived. 

^^Now for the other side as presented by the young 
men.” 

1. The world is growing better because it con- 
tains every year more hospitals and asylums for the sick 
and sinful and unfortunate. 

2 . The world is growing better because human life 
is of longer average duration than ever before. 

^^How does he know that?” asked Miss Fergus, 
got it out of a dictionary of scientific facts,*’ re- 
plied Tom. 


160 


JOm KING’S 


^^That settles it/’ said John King gravely, and he 
went right on. 

4. The world is growing better because the differ- 
ences between nations are now settled by arbitration, 
which used to be settled by war. 

5. The world is growing better because Christian- 
ity is a historical fact, and if there are not more good 
men and good things in the world than formerly, 
Christ’s life and teachings must be a failure, and that 
in the nature of things, is impossible. 

‘^Kow then, there you are,” quoth John King. 
^^Kext week suppose we take a vote on the merits of 
these arguments. We must pass on to the questions 
now, as our time is brief.” 

Question. — ^^How much of a man’s income ought he 
to spend for his own personal pleasure?” 

“Whatever is necessary for the development and 
growth of a child of God. This is a hard question to 
answer for another person as well as for ourselves. 
There are some large principles to go by. We are nevei 
justified in spending money for personal pleasures 
that make us more selfish or forgetful of the 
world’s needs. Only those pleasures are right and 
harmless that leave us better fitted in body, mind, and 
soul to advance the Kingdom of God. On that great 


QUE^^TION CLASS. 


161 


general principle we must work our own details con- 
scientiously.’’ 

■Question. — it right to be pleased with one’s own 
good looks?” 

^^Yes, I think so. Pleased, but not vain. A person 
can he happy to think he has a good straight body free 
from disease or disfigurement. That is a natural feeling 
and no harm in it. But when it comes to standing 
before a mirror and admiring ourselves, if that is what 
you mean, I should say it was done a good deal, but I 
don’t know of any good to come of it.” 

Question. ‘^Why do so many good people have such 
disagreeable manners?” 

^^Because they are not as good as they ought to be.” 

Question. ^‘Suppose the man who lives next to me 
is five hundred dollars in debt through no fault of his 
own, is sick and unable to work and has a large family. 
Suppose I am in good health, have a fair income, am all 
out of debt and have five hundred dollars in the bank. 
What is my duty towards the man who lives next 
to me?” 

don’t know all the details in such a case. If the 
man has no one else in the world to help him except 
you, it is plainly your duty to help him out of his 
trouble with your five hundred dollars. How much of it 


1G2 


Jom^ KING^S 


you ought to iise in helping him will depend on other 
things. Suppose there are ten other men in the same 
condition, all dependent on you for help, you can't give 
them all five hundred dollars apiece. Suppose you have 
a family yourself dependent on you, the divine law tells 
you to take care of your family. There might be cir- 
cumstances in this supposahle case of yours when it 
would be your duty to let the man next door to you have 
the entire five hundred. There might be other circum- 
stances that would make it wrong for you to give him a 
cent of money. The Bible says, Vhosoever hath the 
world’s goods and seeth his brother have need and shut- 
teth his compassion from him, how dwelleth the love of 
God in him?’ The plain teaching is that we are to 
relieve all the suffering we can. Do all the good we can. 
Not hoard up money. Not be selfish. I don’t think any 
man with good health and five hundred dollars in the 
hank and a heart ready to do the will of God and anxious 
to love his fellow man would be plagued very much to 
know what to do in such a case. He would do some- 
thing any way, if his neighbor was dependent on him 
for help. And as I say, he might use the five hundred 
dollars for him or he might not. In any case he 
would have compassion on him and help as far as 
possible, that is, he would if he had the right thought 


QUESTION CLASS. 


103 


of bearing the burdens of the weak and not pleasing 
himself.” 

Question. ^‘Why are people of genius so apt to be 
queer and odd and do such outlandish things different 
from common people?” 

^^Because they are geniuses, I suppose. ThaBs one of 
the penalties of being born great. They will always 
be different from other people. And then they 
say that geniuses are only another kind of crazy 
people, and that would account for their queer 
actions.” 

Question. ^The papers said that one of the recently 
elected governors of one of the states spent seventeen 
thousand dollars to get the election. If that is true, 
what do you think of it?” 

^Tf it is true I think it is simply a tremendous argu- 
ment against the spoils theory of office holding. A man 
cannot honestly spend seventeen thousand dollars to get 
elected to anything.” 

Question. ^AVho is more to blame, the man who sells 
whisky or the man who buys it ?” 

^^The man who sells. The man who buys it is to 
blame, too, but not so much as the other.” 

Question. ^A^ou said a few weeks ago in a sermon 
that you thought the Sunday paper was on llie whole a 


164 


JOHN KlNG^S 


bad thing. What is the best argument against the Sun- 
day paper?” 

^The best argument is that the Sunday paper com- 
pels the civilized community to keep up the same con- 
tact with politics, fashion, sport, gossip, and crime all 
the week. It does not allow the community to pause 
and give it breathing or resting for something else and 
different, one day in seven. Close on the heels of the 
Sunday paper comes the Monday morning paper and 
thousands of civilized people are saturated with news- 
paper. They think newspaper and eat newspaper and 
dream newspaper. They don’t read anything else or 
take time to let their minds lie open for twenty-four 
hours for something entirely different. One of the best 
uses of Sunday is rest from the world and the things 
of the world. The Sunday paper destroys this rest. 
It breaks in on a man selfishly after having been at him 
all the week and says, ‘Read me some more!’ All that 
most preachers ask of people is about two hours of Sun- 
day. But the Sunday paper insists on claiming at least 
four or five hours of the people’s time on Sunday. 
That’s what I call the best argument against the Sun- 
day paper.” 

Question. “Would you advise a girl not to have 
anything to do with a young man simply because he 


QUESTION CLASS. 


165 


smokes, if he is good enough in every other respect? 
What should she do?” 

^^Smoking is not a crime. It is, as I think and as 
this girl evidently thinks, a bad habit. I would not 
advise the girl not to have anything to do with the 
young man if he is good and pure in every other respect. 
If that last clause is true, the girl has a good chance to 
win such a young man from smoking if she dislikes it 
and he knows it. If I were she I would plainly let him 
know what I thought of smoking. He will respect her 
all the more for her frankness in telling him what she 
thinks. And if he is really good and pure and values 
her respect or even if his feeling should ever grow into 
something deeper, if he is good and pure he will break 
off the habit for her sake. Smoking is a useless, expen- 
sive, and worst of all, disagreeable habit. The good, pure 
young man has no more right to indulge in this dis- 
agreeable habit than the good, pure girl who asks this 
question. Suppose the girl ask the young man some- 
time, ^What would you think of me to see me going 
down State Street puffing a cigarette or cigar? Would 
you want to continue my acquaintance?’ No, I cannot 
say to you. Don’t have anything to do with him. But 
let him know that you dislike the habit and if he still 
keeps on with it, it will look very much as if he thought 


166 


JOU^ KINOES 


more of his smoke than he does of you and you ought 
to he glad that it never went any farther. 

^That ends the questions this evening/’ said John 
King closing the box and after the usual social chat the 
class departed. 

When Victoria reached Chicago again she went at 
once to the old home. Her father was still there. He 
was evidently glad to have her back. Victoria noted 
with deepening sorrow the signs of growing dissipation 
in his face and figure. Her means were now such that 
she was able to move into a more desirable house in a 
better part of the city. She also persuaded her father 
to give up his theater engagement and succeeded in 
getting a few pupils for him. Her own reputation 
helped her to do this. For the next three years the 
history of Victoria was a history of constant public 
triumph in her profession and of secret anguish over 
the home life of her father and the position of Victor. 
At last the term of Victor’s imprisonment expired. In 
all the time of his imprisonment Victoria had wTitten 
to him and also visited him. In all that time he had 
maintained his stubborn silence with the other prisoners 
and the prison officials. Victoria wrote him when he 
was released to come at once to her. Some public en- 
gagement had prevented her going to him. She had 


QUESTION CLASS. 


IGT 


sent him money to provide liberally for his expenses. 
But the weeks went by and Victor did not appear 
and he did not write. Victoria in her heart of hearts 
felt the anguish of the situation and longed for the 
brother and imagined all kinds of possible fate for 
him. 

She had come home from the Symphony one even- 
ing at this time, after an enthusiastic reception from 
a magnificent audience and was sitting alone and wait- 
ing as she often did for her father to come in, when she 
heard the bell ring and went out herself to answer the 
door. There stood Victor. She knew him at once and 
with a cry of joy and a sob she dragged him into the 
house with all her love for him as strong as ever. He 
was plainly moved but did not show it in any demon- 
strative way. His face was hard and old. Otherwise 
he had the same jaunty self-satisfied look. After sev- 
eral questions concerning his movements, Victor said 
speaking slowly and doggedly, 

“I can’t get anything to do. I sang in a church in 
one town for five dollars a Sunday. When they found 
out who I was they told me to go. Everybody knows 
me here. But I thought I would make a strike and 
come.” 

^Tather has been holding that money for you, Vic- 


108 


JOHN KING^S QUESTION CLASS. 


tor, that mother left/’ Victoria said timidly. She was 
surprised at Victor’s apparent indifference. He said — 
don’t need it just now. Vi, there is just one thing 
I want. I want a chance to sing again. Either in John 
King^s church or with you in the Symphony. But I’m 
a felon! A convict! My career is ruined!” For the 
first time he showed signs of breaking down. Victoria 
kneeled beside him. Her mind was in a whirl of con- 
jecture. Would John King let Victor come back? 
Would the manager engage him to sing solo parts in the 
Symphony? Or would society now brand him as an 
outcast? She asked it as she kneeled beside him who 
was at that moment the dearest person to her in all 
the wide sinning, suffering world. 


CHAPTEE VIII. 


FTEE a while Victoria said speaking slowly, 
^^Victor, what do you want me to do?’^ 

^^I want you to. use your influence with the 
manager or with John King to get me a place again.^' 
Victoria shook her head sadly. 

^Tm afraid it will be impossible.” 

‘‘1 don’t know why. My voice is just the same,” 
Victor spoke fiercely. 

^‘^You know that society passes its verdict on — ” 

^^On convicts, for life! Yes, once a convict always 
a convict!” 

^^Don’t, Victor!” Victoria spoke with a shudder. 
Then she added, will do all in my power to help you. 
Do you want me to see the manager?” 

^^Yes, and John King. If he believes as he preaches 
he ought to give me another chance.” 

^‘1 will see him, too,” said Victoria quietly. 

^^When?” 

will go tomorrow and see the manager.” 

Just then the father came in. 

He was surprised at the sight of Victor. The greet- 



ITO 


.H)HN KING^S 


ing between them was awkward and constrained. Vic- 
tor was sullen and said little. He complained of being 
very tired and after a little went off to the room Victoria 
had been keeping ready for him. 

In the morning Victoria went to see the manager. 
She at once made known her errand. 

^^You remember my brother Victor? He has served 
out his time and is in the city. He wants to go on the 
stage again. He wants a position in the Symphony — ’’ 

“What! With a state prison record! I beg pardon, 
Miss .Stanwood, but we must talk plainly about this.’’ 

“I know, I know,” replied Victoria in much dis- 
tress. “It gives me unspeakable pain to think of it. 
Still, could it not be possible for my brother to secure a 
position in some way? I am convinced that his future 
depends on his getting some large place where he can 
sing to the best people.” 

“That may be true. But it would be out of the 
question for him to come on with the Symphony. His 
prison record is too fresh in the public mind. It would 
be an insult to the public to announce him now.” 

Victoria flushed. 

“Even if he were entirely reformed?” 

“Even if he were entirely reformed. But is he?’^ 

“He says little. He is very anxious to get back into 


QUESTION CLASS 


171 


his old place as a popular singer. Is there no hope for 
him?^’ 

^^In time, yes. But not now. It would simply kill 
us all with the public to put him forward.” 

“And yet his voice — Oh, you should hear it. His 
voice will surely win its way with the people. They will 
forgive anything when they hear him. Surely the peo- 
ple will treat him kindly for my sake.” 

“There are the other performers. How will they 
take him?” 

“I hadn’t thought of them.” 

The manager was thoughtfully silent. At last he 
said as if he were having a debate with himself — 

“I am under great obligations to you. Miss Stan- 
wood. And I am willing to do this. I will engage 
Victor for one week. I have little doubt that the 
result will be disastrous, but that is my lookout 
Send him to me. I want to see him and talk with 
him.” 

Victoria was surprised but she did not say much. 
She dreaded to go back to Victor without some hope to 
give him. The manager’s unexpected offer relieved 
her. She did not have quite the same fear qf results as 
he had. She thanked him heartily and returned to 
Victor. 


172 


JO™ KING’S 


^‘The manager wants to see you/’ she said to him 
without giving details of the conversation. 

When Victor went into the manager’s office he was 
alone. He at once said; 

^^Mr. Stanwood, you understand the risk I run in 
giving you a position on the Symphony. This is a mat- 
ter of dollars and cents with me. I have agreed to give 
you an opportunity to sing for one week. I have not 
heard you sing since the night of the concert. I have 
the right to ask you to favor me now. I run all the risk 
of offending my public but if I do so I wish to have 
some excuse in your voice. There is the piano. Will 
you play your own accompaniment or shall I?” 

^Tll play my own/’ said Victor shortly. 

He went over to the piano and sat down and at once 
began to sing. 

There was no mistaking his wonderful gift for any- 
thing ordinary. The manager was a man of the world 
and he knew' that such voices were very rare. When 
Victor had finished, the manager remained thoughtfully 
seated by his desk. At last he said plainly, 

^^You have a remarkable voice, young man, and if it 
wasn’t for those three years in the pen I would be lucky 
to get you at any price. But you know that makes a 
difference.” 


QUESTION CLASS. 


173 


Victor stood biting his lip and nervously beating his 
foot on the floor. ^‘^Yes, I told Victoria once a convict 
always a convict. lias that anything to do with my 
ability to sing?” 

^^No, but it has something to do with your reception 
by tim public,” said the manager coolly. ^^However I 
will do what I promised. Give you a week. It will 
probably cost me a pretty penny but — ” he smiled a 
little grimly, ^^I will make the public pay most of it.” 

He made terms with Victor who soon went away and 
when he was fairly out on the street the curtains at the 
end of the room parted as they had done several years 
before when Victoria played, as she thought, to the 
manager alone, and several gentlemen came into the 
room. 

The manager’s friends were very free in their criti- 
cisms. 

most unusual voice.” 

remarkable rendering of a simple piece of ballad 

music.” 

^Tt will be a great risk. The public will resent it.” 

^^Why, everyone knows Stanwood’s history. It will 
make trouble in your company.” 

^^No, it won’t; the public will forgive everything for 


the voice.” 


174 


Jom KING^S 


wouldn’t risk it myself.” 

And so on. Some opposed, some condemned the 
manager’s action in making the engagement with Vic- 
tor, hut all without exception praised his great gift. 

Victor was to appear the first night of the coming 
week. The public soon learned of the engagement and 
a tremendous house greeted him as he made his appear- 
ance. The daily papers had devoted large space to his 
career and refreshed people’s minds on the facts of the 
forgery and the assault of three years ago. There 
seemed to be a variety of opinion as to the purpose of 
the manager in hiring this attraction. But the first two 
nights Victor sang to crowded houses and with consider- 
able favor from the audience. The third night how- 
ever there arose a difficulty. The lady who had played 
his accompaniments came to the manager just before 
the curtain was to rise and told him she would not play. 
She had just learned the full facts in regard to the new 
tenor. The manager was expecting anything of the 
kind and was prepared for it. 

^^Very well,” he said, and sent for Victoria. 

“Miss Stanwood, will you play for your brother this 
evening?” 

Victoria saw what the trouble was and instantly re- 
plied; 


QUESTION CLASS. 


175 


^^Yes. We will go on together. I am ready.” 
When the time came brother and sister came on, 
Victoria with her violin for she preferred to accompany 
Victor with that instrument instead of with the piano. 
Victor understood why she was obliged to do so. His 
face w^as hard and pale. Nevertheless he did his part 
splendidly. The audience was enthusiastic. Brother 
and sister were called back. There were people in the 
city w^ho understood and sympathized with Victoria’s 
story and the present situation. 

But when the Symphony was over that night Victor 
abruptly went to the manager and said, 

^^Cancel my engagement!” 

^my? What is the—” 

cannot stand such things as those to-night. I 
heard what Madam W. said to you.” 

Mt is what you might expect.” The manager spoke 
with some bitterness. Then he added with some feeling, 
“I w'as in hopes you might live it down. There’s half a 
dozen of the company however gave notice to-day that 
they should quit. The public is all right. It’s the 
fastidious people on the stage that object — ” 

^^To a convict!” said Victor with a hard laugh. He 
went home with Victoria, enraged at all the world. It 
took the manager a long time to recover from the disas- 


176 


JOHN KlNG^S 


irons effects of tliat experiment. With some people he 
has never recovered from the disgrace of putting a con- 
vict into the Symphony. 

The next day Victor announced his intention of go- 
ing to see John King. 

don’t want you to go, Vi,” he said with a nearer 
approach to his old time affection than he had yet 
shown. have asked too much of you already. I 
will look after myself.” 

So in spite of Victoria’s earnest and loving willing- 
ness to do anything for him, he went alone to see John 
King. 

The preacher happened to be in his study alone. 
He greeted Victor just the same as if those three years 
with all their disgrace and agony had never been. Vic- 
tor was nervous and at once made known his errand. 

want to sing again in your church, Mr. King. 
Can you take me back?” 

J ohn King looked at him with a serious but not sad 
look peculiar to his face. 

^^Of course you know the effect on the public of your 
prison record?” 

^^Yes, sir. I know it well enough.” 

^^You know that such a feeling is strong in my 
church?” 


QUESTION CLASS. 


177 


sir, I don’t know it.” 

“It is. I doubt if my organist will play for you. I 
am speaking very frankly to you now.” 

Victor flushed. He recalled the scene with John 
King when he had resented the preacher’s talking to 
him about gambling. He also recalled John King’s 
words, “The time may come when you will need a 
friend. When that time comes if you will come to me 
for any help I can give you it will be given as freely as 
the love I have for you this very moment.” Instinct- 
ively his proud soul went out for help just now. He 
had the greatest longing to get back to his former place 
with the public. The great gift of his voice was just 
beginning to be truly seen by him in something of its 
true meaning. More than all, his great vanity 
was as strong as ever. He felt that if he could only 
once get a hearing his voice would triumph over preju- 
dice. 

“I have never forgotten your promise to me, Mr. 
King. That time I left the church.” 

“Yes?” John King’s face lightened up eagerly. 
“Well, it is still good.” 

“I am in great need of help.” Ko one can under- 
stand what it cost the vain Victor to say those words. 
John King leaped up to them like a redeemed soul 


178 


JOHN KING’S 


launching itself out on a storm wrecked sea after a lost 
soul. 

will do what I can for you. There are a great 
many things to take into the account. For my part I 
will welcome you back to sing. I may have difficulty in 
making others see it as I do. But you shall sing next 
Sunday morning on my responsibility. Stanwood, has 
not your experience brought you into a desire for a 
Christian life?’’ 

Victor trembled. If the bell had not rung that mo- 
ment, followed by a hurried knocking at the study door 
he might have yielded his proud soul up like a child to 
his Father. The interruption sent him away however 
with only this definite impression on John King’s mind 
— that the experiences of the next few days might deter- 
mine the future of a very sensitive and selfish nature. 

When Sunday came Victor went to the church and 
entered the choir room by the side door. What John 
King had done in the two days that preceded Sunday 
since that interview in the study Victor never knew 
until long afterwards. The facts of the morning’s ex- 
perience in church however may be briefly described. 

There was at the time in John King’s church a 
mixed chorus choir under the direction of the organist. 
When the hour for service arrived perhaps half the 


QUESTION CLASS. 


179 


members of the choir were in their seats. The organist 
did not appear. John King waited a few minutes and 
then in the midst of a deadly stillness over the great 
audience he went to the organ himself and played the 
voluntary. 

The service went on as if nothing unusual was tak- 
ing place. 

The hymns were sung and just before the sermon 
Victor came out and sang. John King stepped back to 
the organ and played the accompaniment for him. The 
effect of Victor’s voice was the same it had always been. 
There was perhaps an added power because of the ten- 
sion under which the entire strange service was being 
conducted. The anthem by the choir was omitted. 
The sermon was one of the best and his prayer breathed 
tender love for all mankind. In a great church like 
his there were however very many people who con- 
demned his action in inviting Victor to sing and con- 
sidered it an abuse of privilege and a mistake in every 
way. From the results of that, King felt the 
effects in some way all through his after ministry in 
that place. 

At the close of the service when John King went 
back into his room to get his hat and coat, Victor met 
him and said. 


180 


JOHN KING^S 


^^Mr. King, you have done your part. Made good 
your promise. But I can’t stand it. I can’t sing under 
these conditions.” 

He was rushing out when King reached out an arm 
and detained him. ^^Let me help you in any other way 
I can, won’t you?” 

Victor for reply wrung the hand held out to him and 
went out at once and that was the last time he ever 
sung in John King’s church. 

He went home and told Victoria. 

^J’m an outcast! A felon! The world has kicked 
me out. I might as well die and be done with it!” 

Victoria was in an agony for him. 

^^No! No! Victor, time will bring all right again. 
You must live in hope. You must try where you are 
not known.” 

^^Yes and as soon as I am known, I shall be kicked 
out.” 

He brooded about the house for several days and at 
last one day he suddenly asked Victoria for the money 
that belonged to him and which the father had kept 
sacredly for him while he was in prison. 

Victoria told her father and he at once put Victor 
in possession of the entire amount. Victor did not re- 
veal his plans to any one. He took the money and was 


QUESTION ULlSS. 


l81 


gone several days. Then he came hack and Victoria 
who welcomed him gladly thought his manner towards 
her was more affectionate than at any time since the old 
times. He remained with her and the father and 
gradually his manner grew more like that of the time 
when he first began to sing when Victoria left him. He 
began to dress extravagantly. He was often away from 
the house for days together. He said little about his 
doings. But Victoria although absorbed in her profes- 
sion and unusually busy at just this time, felt her heart 
sink within her as she slowly came to the conclusion 
that the old gambling passion was asserting its sway over 
Victor again, and out of her heart went a great prayer 
for deliverance. 

It was at this time in her life that Victoria met 
Eichard Bruce and Tom Howard and also became a 
member of the Question Class. 

Eichard and Tom were in charge, under King’s 
directions, of a mission work down in the slums. They 
had a boy’s brigade, some night classes in book-keeping 
and shorthand and had long been wishing to start music 
classes. 

The three were talking it over one day when John 
King said, 

^^Boys, it just occurs to me that Miss Stanwood of 


182 


JOHN KING^S 


the Symphony will give us one or two nights a week. 
The Symphony plays only three nights.” 

^^Whew!” said Tom. ^'That’s all right. But where 
are we going to get the shekels to pay for such talent?” 

think Miss Stanwood will play for the love of it,” 
said John King. 

^^Yes, she goes to the hospitals every Sunday and 
gives free recitals,” said Eichard. 

^^Suppose we ask her if she can give us an evening 
or two.” 

So John King went to see her and at the first men- 
tion of the proposed music classes Victoria heartily con- 
sented. At first she gave one evening a week. Later 
she gave two. She became intensely interested in the 
work. Once a month she arranged a musical and with 
the assistance of her friends and the co-operation of 
Tom and Eichard she filled the hall used by the church 
for part of its institutional work with a great crowd of 
the most needy and music hungry people in all the city. 
She was delighted. 

Getting acquainted with Tom and Eichard thus, she 
was drawn into the Question Class, which was a source 
of great enjoyment to her whenever her public engage- 
ments would permit her to attend. Victoria lived a 
singularly retired and quiet life for one who had 


QUESTION CLASS. 


183 


gained such a high place as a musician. Her 
father’s condition required her presence at home a 
great deal. lie was growing worse and lately he 
had had symptoms of failure of all his physical 
powers. So that at this time in her life Victoria 
saw very little of society except the little gather- 
ings of the Question Class and her fashionable audi- 
ences at the Symphony and her unfashionable rabble at 
the music classes in the slums and her friends in the 
hospitals. The Question Class was a relief to her heart 
and mind under all the strain to which she was sub- 
jected, and whenever she had opportunity she always 
attended. She was specially interested in the questions 
the second time she was present and made up her mind 
to bring in a question herself at the next meeting. 

^^The first to-night is as follows,” John King an- 
nounced as soon as the class had quieted down from its 
usual social prelude. 

Question. ^‘When is the best time for a girl to try 
to reform a young man? Before she marries him or 
after?” 

^Tf he is not reformed before, it is very doubtful if 
he ever will be after. It is to my mind a great mistake 
which many girls make when they think that they can 
reform a bad man by marrying him. Let me read you 


i84 


jOE^ KING’S 


a little article recently written by Marion Harland on 
this subject. She says, 'My heart aches when I think of 
the women who began the work of reforming with hope 
and laid it down with despair at the end of life that 
made them turn weary arms to death with a sigh of wel- 
come. On the table before me stands the portrait of 
one such woman. When she was a merry hearted girl 
she fell in love with a handsome, brilliant young fellow 
whose only failure was a fondness for liquor. He loved 
her deeply — better than anything else in the world ex- 
cept drink. ^Nevertheless he promised to overcome 
even this passion for her sake. In vain did her family 
plead and protest. Her only answer was, "He cannot 
keep straight without someone to help him. I must 
marry him now. He needs me.” 

'A few years after her marriage she died of a broken 
heart whispering at the last to a dear friend that she was 
not sorry to go but would be thankful that life was over 
if she were only sure that her son would not be left to 
her husband’s care.’ 

"It is very seldom that a girl reforms a man by 
marrying him. It is an awful risk to run. I cannot 
safely advise any girl to run it.” 

Question. "To what extent should we praise and 
honor one person above another because of the greater 


QUEi^TION CLASS. 


185 


talents of the one, when we consider the pride that 
honor above others engenders and the consequent want 
of due praise to God the giver of the talents on the part 
of the individual?” 

one should he honored or praised above another 
because of greater talents. That is no reason for giving 
such honor to anyone. If a person has greater talents than 
others he should humbly give God, the author of every 
gift, all the praise, and humbly ask for wisdom to use 
the talent to His glory. There is a great deal of false 
hero worship in the world. I do not believe in bowing 
down to a man because he is a gre^t author or a great 
musician or a great preacher or a great foot ball player, 
unless there is something in the way of character or 
moral force in him to warrant my respect and esteem. 
Ho. Praise and honor should never be given people of 
great talents simply because of the talents. Especially 
when such praise makes the person vain and forgetful of 
God. Let us have less hero worship. The present age 
knows all sorts of superiority without discrimination. 
Society gapes in admiration at the great prize fighter 
and the great poet and the great preacher and the great 
politician and the great millionaire without much out- 
ward distinction. The Hew York papers that praised 
T)r. Parkhurst for his splendid fight against Tammany 


186 


JOHN KING’S 


and misrule contained in the same edition the same 
number of columns of sickening praise of the great prize 
fighter Corbett. Away with such hero worship. All 
true praise belongs to Almighty God and should not be 
bestowed on humanity except as it represents him in 
character and in service.” 

Question. ^^Don’t you think people eat too much 
on Thanksgiving day?” 

^^Some people do. And then they are sorry for it 
afterwards, as I suspect the writer of this question is.” 

Question. ^^What is the most important part of a 
church service?” 

^That depends on several things. Sometimes one 
part, sometimes another. It depends on the person 
also. One man thinks the sermon is the most important 
part. He gets more out of that than from anything 
else. Another man gets more out of a prayer or a 
hymn. That is the most important part to that man. 
One part of the church service ought not to be so over- 
whelmingly important that the other parts are of little 
account. I have had a man in my church ask me to 
omit the prayers and the scripture reading and come at 
once to the preaching. That was all he cared for, he 
said. But there were other men in the church who re- 
ceived more help from the prayers and music than from 


QUESTION CLASS. 


187 


the preaching. Every part of a church service should 
be important and at different times and with different 
people each part will be at some time perhaps the most 
helpful and important.” 

Question. ^^Ought not all Christians to unite for 
the overthrow of the increasing drinking and drunken- 
ness and the entire liquor business and the gambling and 
the oppressive combines and trusts and all such like 
evils?” 

^^Yes. And until they do so unite in a true Chris- 
tian union those evils will continue to grow in power. 
A united Christendom is the only answer to the world’s 
wickedness and the only remedy for its evils.” 

Question. ^^Will the resurrected body bear any re- 
semblance to the earthly body; the youth’s resurrected 
body to the youth’s earthly body; the child’s resurrected 
body to the child’s earthly body; the aged person’s re- 
surrected body to the aged person’s earthly body?” 

don’t believe we can tell. ^God giveth it a body 
as it pleaseth him.’ It will be a spiritual existence in 
the resurrected state. Whatever form the resurrected 
person shall bear we know this much. The form will 
be glorious, free from disfigurement, weakness, pain, 
and sickness. And more than all, I am convinced that 
whatever God pleases for the resurrected body will com- 


188 


JOHN KING’S 


f)letely satisfy us whether it be in regard to our own 
selves or in regard to the children, the youth, or the old 
people who have gone before. More than that w'e may 
not know as yet. But that ought to be enough.’’ 

Question. ^^Are there any degrees of sin? In God’s 
sight is not a little sin as wrong as a great sin?” 

^^Yes, I think there are degrees of sin. It is not as 
great a sin to tell a lie as to commit murder or assault 
on another man. The effect of sin is not so disastrous in 
the one case as in the other. There are infinite degrees 
of sin. And a little sin cannot be as wrong as a great 
sin in God’s sight for if it were, then the little child who 
is guilty of being cross or deceptive would have to be 
classed with the man who had committed all the crimes 
known to the law breaker. This is true. All sin is 
hateful in God’s sight. All sin is wrong. What we call 
little sins He undoubtedly calls great and would have us 
shun with horror what we often do with little thought. 
But that does not mean that He regards all sin as 
equally wrong.” 

Question. ^^How can a young man who is very 
much in love tell w^hether the girl cares anything for 
him or not?” 

should think one way to find out would be to ask. 

her.” 


QUESTION CLASS, 


189 


Question. it Christian to wear mourning for 
the dead? Or is it in accordance with Christ’s teaching 
not to observe the common custom of wearing black? 
What did he teach about it?” 

^^He did not teach anything as to wearing mourning 
for the dead and it is my opinion that such a habit is 
not required by the Christian religion. I do not want 
my friends to mourn for me in that way or to put 
crape on their doors or on their hats. There is one 
large city in the United States where it is the custom 
to keep the curtains down and the blinds shut in the 
windows of the front room for a year after the death of 
one in the family and during all that time no one of the 
family is supposed to accept any social invitations or 
leave off distinct mourning apparel. This is the custom 
among the people of style and influence. Whatever 
else that may be, I cannot believe it is Christianity. 
Christianity fills us, with hope of eternal life. Death 
is not the awful gloomy thing the pagans made it. 
There are a great many pagan things in our civiliza- 
tion yet and among them I call wearing mourning dress, 
one.” 

When the class went away that night Victoria asked 
if she might send in several questions at a time in case 
she was not able to come every week. John King read- 


190 


JOHN KING’S 


ily granted her leave, saying the class would relax the 
strictness of its rules in her special case. 

It was during this week that Victoria’s father began 
to grow worse and finally his symptoms became so 
serious that Victor and herself spent days and weeks 
of watching by his side. It was at this time also 
that Victor began to borrow money of her, at first in 
small sums, then after a little in larger amounts, 
until Victoria was unable to let him have what he 
wanted. 

One day at this time she had been to see the man- 
ager on a matter of business and he had spoken of her 
careworn anxious appearance. 

^Tou are working too hard. You need a vacation.*’ 

^^I cannot leave father now. He needs me. But I 
wish Victor could get an engagement somewhere. I am 
worried over him.” 

^^Ah!” thought the manager as he glanced keenly at 
the determined but somewhat pale and drooping little 
figure in black. ^'So there’s your greatest trouble, eh? 
Miserable young scamp. After all that’s been done for 
him by nature and by his sister!” 

Victoria was going out when the manager called her 
back. 

‘‘Miss Stanwood, do you remember that two thou- 


QUESTION CLASS. 


191 


sand dollars you paid me three years ago for that 
violin r 

^^Yes.” Victoria waited wondering a little. 

^^Well, I have never spent that two thousand dollars. 
In fact I have never cashed-the check.’^ 

The manager said this in the most matter of fact 
tone and pulling out a small drawer in his desk he pro- 
duced the check with Victoria’s endorsement on the 
back. 

^Tt’s good yet of course/’ said the manager quietly 
as he handed it over to the astonished Victoria. 

^The fund is still in deposit with accumulated inter- 
est for three years. And I’ll tell you what I would do. 
I would draw out a thousand dollars and get Victor to 
go abroad with it and secure a place somewhere. He is 
getting into bad ways again here.” 

^^Oh, sir!” Victoria almost broke down, ^‘1 have 
feared it of late. But if he could get a position. I am 
sure he has ambition. But his old habits — ” 

''Well, that’s what I say,” said the manager gently. 
"Get the boy to promise to get a new start. Let him 
have a part of this. Yes, I insist on your taking the 
check back. I acted like a brute at the time the violin 
was smashed and I never meant to take anything from 
you for it. I knew if I didn’t pretend to take it that 


192 


JOHN KING’S 


precious brother of yours would get it in time. And 
besides, Miss Stanwood, I happened to know that you 
have saved from your earnings to pay that two thousand 
dollars on the forged check in New York. The mana- 
ger lost it through Victor, and you paid it back. I call 
that pretty plucky. Not many people would have done 
it.’^ 

Victoria flushed. She had never told anyone. The 
manager had heard of it from some New York friends. 

^^And so I want you to take this money back. You 
need it just now, don’t you?” 

^^Yes,” replied Victoria frankly. ^^And if I can per- 
suade Victor to secure a place abroad I am sure it will 
be the making of him.” 

‘^Of course it will.” The manager was as enthusi- 
astic over the plan as a boy. He loved anything that 
had a plot in it. ^Y'ou go and draw out a thousand 
dollars to-day. Have the money ready to hand to Vic- 
tor when he comes home. Will he be home to-night?” 

H think so. Yes, he has been regular lately.” 

^^Good! Then lay the plan before him. I will give 
you a letter of introduction to parties in Berlin and 
London to give him. The affair is not very well known 
on the continent. Oh, we can manage it all right.” 

The manager’s enthusiasm gave Victoria new hope. 


QUESTION CLASS. 


193 


He sat down and wrote the letters and Victoria, feel- 
ing as if in another dream took them and the check and 
went out. 

She drew out a thousand dollars in bills of large de- 
nomination and went home. She knew Victor well 
enough to know that the sight of the money would im- 
press him. She would appeal to his love for her. She 
would call on his ambition, she would even touch his 
vanity to save him and then she would give him the 
money and show him what a new chance it opened to 
him to go abroad and secure a position where his prison 
record would not follow him. 

She thought this plan all over that evening as she 
sat by her father in the absence of the nurse who had 
been excused for a day or two on account of a death in 
her own home. 

The night grew about her and it was very late and 
still Victor did not come in. Victoria was very tired. 
She had lost a great deal of sleep. The clock struck 
one and she knew that she was still awake. Then she 
thought she heard the half hour. She must have 
dropped off when the clock struck two, for the next 
sound she heard was one stroke of the half hour. She 
shook herself and rose to look at the father. As she 
did so she heard a noise in the next room which was her 


194 JOHN KING'S QUESTION CLASS. 

own. She instantly stepped to the doon which was 
nearly closed and pushed it wide open. The electric 
light was burning there and the figure of a man was 
stooping over the desk where she kept her writing 
materials and into which she had placed the money 
brought home that evening. The noise she made caused 
the figure to rise hastily. There was no other way to 
leave the room except by the door, where the man stood. 
Before she had time to utter a word the light fell full 
on the man’s face and she saw it was Victor standing 
there, with the package containing the money held fast 
in his right hand. 


CHAPTER IX. 


ICTORIA walked straight up to Victor and 
said, 

Victor, what are you doing?” 

As she spoke his fingers nervously opened and the 
package of money fell upon the fioor. Victoria stooped 
and picked it up and during the conversation that fol- 
lowed, stood between Victor and the door, as if she 
feared he might attempt to go away before she could 
talk with him. 

^^Were you going to steal this money?” Victoria asked 
the question with a feeling of indignation at Victors 
act. For a moment she had no feeling but scorn for 
him. 

Victor looked this way and that. He was so com- 
pletely surprised that he had no defense to make. He 
had thought Victoria was sound asleep. She had not 
awakened when he passed through into her room. At 
last he said in a low voice — 

“I am in great need of money!” 

^^And so you steal mine!” 



190 


.JOllX KIKCrt^ 


''I have not stolen it I was just going to look at 
the package.” 

^^Do you know how much money there is here?” 

^^No, I tell you, Victoria, I never counted it.” 

^There is a thousand dollars. Do you know what I 
was going to do with this money?” 

^^No, I didn’t know you had so much.” 

Victoria was calmer now after the first agitation. 
Her heart ached as she began to think of the misery 
Victor was suffering from his own evil life. She came 
closer up to him and said, trembling with feeling — 

^^Victor, I drew this money out of the bank to-day 
on purpose to give it to you on condition that you take 
it and go abroad to get a position where you can sing 
in some country where the story of your trouble is not 
known. Tell me, Victor, do you love me? If you do, 
you will take this money and use it to redeem your past. 
The manager has written letters of introduction to 
friends in Berlin and London and they will be of very 
great help to you. 0 Victor, Victor! My heart is break- 
ing to think of the life you live! My own ambition is 
almost gone. If it were not for father and the need of 
keeping on I should be ready to break down. If you love 
me Vic, for the sake of the dear mother who was so 
proud of you — ” 


QUESTION CLASS. 


197 


Victoria looked down suddenly. She threw herself 
into a chair by the writing desk and burying her head 
in her arms, sobbed and cried so violently that Victor 
could not endure it. 

He stood irresolutely a moment, then falling on his 
knees by the side of his sister he threw his arms about 
her and cried almost as when he broke through his 
pride in the prison. 

^^Victoria, Victoria, I do love you! I am the most 
miserable being on earth. I don’t deserve such love as 
yours. I am living in a constant hell, Victoria, I will 
kill myself. Then I shall be out of the way and you 
will not be troubled with me any more!” 

Victor’s passion once expressed was so violent and 
unrestrained that Victoria was terrified. He continued 
to pour out a perfect torrent of self reproach as he 
kneeled by Victoria. He almost shrieked in his excite- 
ment. Victoria felt her own feeling subside. At last 
she w'as able to say, Victor, it is wicked for you to talk 
so. Do you want to fill my whole life with horror? Or 
do you want to start a new career from this night and 
go on to grow into a happy, useful man ?” 

^^0, I will do anything, Vi! Only let me try away 
from liere. Can you love me after all this?” 

“Of course I can, Victor, The past will be past to 


198 


JOHI^ KING’S 


me. It all rests with you to make me perfectly happy. 
Assert your manhood. Break away from this gambling 
passion. With your great gift you can make your place 
in the world and be of so much service to mankind. 
And I would be willing to slave all my days to help 
you if — ” 

know it, I know it, Vi! I learned of your paying 
up the New York manager. Oh, I have been a brute! I 
have been a brute! I have not much hope for myself.’’ 

^Tromise me, Victor. Start out from this very 
night. You are young and strong. You have every- 
thing in your voice. Let the past be forgotten. Live it 
down. And then after you have won distinction and 
honor come back and we will all welcome you into a 
happy life with us here.” 

Victoria spoke with enthusiasm. She saw that Vic- 
tor was deeply moved, more so than at any time since his 
first downward step. Victor listened sadly and when 
Victoria ceased he continued to kneel there by her with 
his head bowed and his whole attitude one of the deep- 
est shame and remorse. They were both roused by a 
cry from the other room. The father had been stirred 
out of his half stupor, half sleeping condition by the 
noi^e. Brother and sister went into the other room 
and stood by him. 


QUESTION CLASS. 


199 


Victor was shocked at his fathei-^s appearance. He 
whispered to Victoria, 

“How long has father been like this? Isn’t he much 
worse?” 

“He has been this way for more than a month. 
The doctor fears paralysis.” Victoria spoke quietly 
but she had long been accustomed to think of 
the time when her father would be a helpless 
invalid. 

“Is that you, Victor?” the father suddenly spoke, 
struggling with difficulty to make himself heard. 

“Yes, father,” said Victor putting out his hand and 
laying it on the sick man’s. 

Mr. Stanwood seemed anxious to make a great effort. 
Twice he seemed incapable of making any intelligible 
sound. Then Victor as he bent over caught the words, 
“Love your sister. Do as she says.” He fell back 
exhausted and lapsed into his customary semi-insensible 
condition. And those were the last words that Victor 
ever heard his father speak. 

The boy was thoroughly aroused, for the time, out of 
his selfishness. He insisted on remaining to care for the 
father while Victoria lay down to get the rest she so 
much needed. In the morning there was no change in 
the sick man’s condition. The doctor came and said that 


200 


JOHN KING>S 


he might live in the same condition for weeks or even 
months. 

ought to stay and help you hear this, Vi,” he 
said when the two were talking over the future plans. 

^^No, Victor, you can help me more by doing as I 
said last night. You see,” continued Victoria with a 
sad smile, ‘^‘^how much I depend on you for keeping up 
here.” 

She talked with him for an hour. He seemed truly 
repentant. He was more like the old Victor than she 
had once hoped for. During the day he yielded to Vic- 
toria’s plan so far as to go out and make some arrange- 
ments for his trip abroad. Victoria placed all the money 
at his disposal. She felt that she was safe in doing that 
under the present condition of Victor’s mind. 

Within the next few days Victor gave every evidence 
of being true to his first impulse for a new and better 
life. He followed Victoria’s directions in preparing for 
his trip abroad, her own experience proving of much 
value to him. And at the end of the week he was all 
ready to leave for New York. His leave taking with 
Victoria was pathetic to her because all his old jaunty, 
self-assertive, vain air of manner was entirely gone. She 
had never seen him so thoughtful, so humble. In her 
heart she rejoiced at it. 


QUESTION CLASS. 


201 


^^Write me from New York and again the minute 
you land in London, Vic.” 

^^Yes, I will. I don’t feel right to go and leave you 
to take care of father.” Victor had parted from him 
with the sorrowful picture of the broken-minded old 
man trying in vain to speak. Already the paralytic 
affection prophesied by the doctor had gained control 
of his tongue. 

^^It is best this way,” Victoria answered bravely. 
^^Eemember, dear Vic, I have put faith in you. Don’t 
disappoint me, will you?” 

He went away brushing the tear from his cheek with 
those last words of the great hearted, loving little sis- 
ter echoing in his heart, and as Victoria, the tears flow- 
ing over her face, watched him until he was out of sight, 
she sent after him the most longing prayer she had ever 
uttered that he might redeem his broken past. It was 
the turning point with him. The crisis. It was well 
worth all the sacrifice of money and affection if the 
life could be saved. And she turned back from the win- 
dow to take up the burden of her home sorrows and her 
public professional career with the quiet courage that 
was becoming every day more and more characteristic 
of her. 

The month that followed was a busy one for her. 


202 


JOUy KIT^G^S 


111 iliat time the father’s condition grew steadily worae. 
He was a helpless paralytic and required constant 
attendance. Victoria was able to secure the best of 
nursing for him but with her public duties she could 
not bear to leave the invalid entirely to the care of hired 
strangers. She spent hours herself by his side. The 
father showed his affection for her in various ways. It 
was at times more nearly like that of a dog than of a 
human being. Victoria was repeatedly moved to tears 
by it. 

Her music classes in the slums and the Monday 
night Question Class, however, gave her a needed change 
and rest from all this strain at home. One Monday 
evening she was invited to John King’s to dinner and 
among the half dozen guests besides herself were Rich- 
ard Bruce and Tom Howard, with whom she was coming 
to have a pleasant acquaintance through their mutual 
interest in the slum work. There was a table full of 
interesting people and the talk turned on books and 
authors and writing. Victoria knew very little about 
the world of letters and she was eager to know more 
of all sorts of life in other directions. She had never 
heard Bruce talk very much. She had read one or two 
of his stories in the Monthly Visitor with which he 
was connected but she had never read any of his longer 


QUESTION CLASS. 


203 


efforts and was a little surprised when sometliing said by 
King revealed the fact that Richard had just finished a 
novel of three hundred pages. 

^^Richard must be getting wealthy by this time,” 
said John King, with a twinkle of his great dark eyes 
in the direction of Tom. ^This is his fourth book in 
as many years. Dick, what do you do with all your 
money? I don’t see where it all goes to.” 

“It all goes to the publishers,” replied Richard with 
a smile. 

“That’s so,” said Tom. “There’s no money in writ- 
ing books, that is, for the author.” 

“How do you know, Tom?” asked King. 

“Why, didn’t you people know that I was the author 
of a thrilling novel entitled “The Pen is mightier than 
the Ink Stand?” I have sent it in type written manu- 
script to fifteen different publishers and they have all 
read it with such force that I have been obliged to have 
it retypewritten two times. I pay the postage and they 
do the rest.” 

“I should like very much to read your book when 
it comes out,” said Victoria demurely. 

“May I put you down for a copy. Miss Stanwood?” 
said Tom without a quiver of his countenance. “The 
book will be sold by subscription only. Plain cloth $1.75. 


204 


John KING'S 


Half calf $3. Full grown calf $3.50. Morocco $5* Let 
me call your attention, madam, to the table of con- 
tents. Full copper plate steel chiseled engravings, cop- 
ies from the old masters taken with a Kodak on the 
spot, 600 pages of the most thrilling descriptions of life 
around the North Pole on the Fourth of July. Book 
will be ready for delivery by freight or express any time 
after Christmas 1912.” 

Tom rattled off a lot of lingo made up in imitation 
of the traveling book agent and after the laugh had 
ceased King said, ‘‘1 suppose it is true that there is not 
any money for the author in a hook unless it has an 
exceptionally large sale. I understand that 10,000 
copies are considered a good sale for what is called a pop- 
iilar novel. Is that so, Dick?” 

‘T have heard so. It is certainly true that an 
author can work longer and harder than almost 
anyone else and receive less for a year’s work 
in proportion to his labor than the average day 
laborer.” 

^^Give us an illustration, Dick, out of your own 
experience.” 

Kichard hesitated. He very seldom spoke of his 
own work or its remuneration. But a glance around 
the table showed him a group of his nearest friends 


QUESTION CLASS. 


205 


aad for once he broke his professional reserve and said 
frankly, 

^^Well, I will let you into the story of one of my 
stories. It took me eight months of hard work to write 
it. Of course during all that time I was not earning 
anything by my labor. It cost me thirty dollars to have 
it typewritten, as publishers will hardly look at hand- 
written manuscript these days. Then I sent it off to a 
publisher by express at a cost of a dollar and a quarter. 
It was gone two months and was sent back. I expressed 
it at the same expense to another house with the same 
result. The manuscript came back to me after three 
months’ absence. There were thirteen months gone 
without a cent for my labor of brain. The third pub- 
lisher to whom I submitted the book accepted it on 
these terms. He would publish, advertise, and put the 
book on the market at his own expense and give me ten 
per cent royalty on the list price of every book sold after 
he had sold a thousand copies. I received this offer just 
fifteen months after I began the story. I accepted it. 
The manuscript had then to be revised and sent back 
and forth several times for correction of proof, each 
time with expense to me. Before the book was out of 
the press, five more months had gone by. And at the 
present time just two years and three moijths have 


206 


JOE^ KINOES 


elapsed since I began that story and I have not received 
a cent from it yet. I shall not get anything from it 
until the one thousand and first copy is sold and then 
only ten per cent for work that I did over two years ago. 
Meanwhile I have had to live all these months. Of 
course if I did not have a salaried position on the Visi- 
tor I would starve writing hooks at that rate.” 

^^But don’t you sometimes sell a story outright for 
cash down?” asked Victoria to whom all this was a 
revelation entirely new. 

^^Yes, but not very often. And when I have done 
so I have never received more than four hundred dol- 
lars for eight months or a year’s work. Of course if one 
is famous as a writer he can make his own terms with 
his publishers. But the men in this country who can do 
that can be counted on the fingers. We common writers 
could never make a living at writing. We are obliged 
to have a salaried position or starve, as the old English 
poets in Grubb Street used to do unless they were for- 
tunate enough to get a rich nobleman for a patron.” 

should think the outlook was discouraging to 
young authors.” 

“It is,” replied Richard, “if a writer expects to make 
money. An author must write from other motives if he 
is only average. At the same time I contend that no 


QUESTION CLASS. 


207 


work is so unevenly paid for considering the time and 
thought put into it as that of an author. Good average 
brains will not earn as much food and clothes and com- 
forts as goad average muscle. The average carpenter or 
mason or railroad employe can make more in a year 
than the average story writer.’’ 

The talk led out into a discussion of the rights or 
the wrongs of the statement by Richard and after a lit- 
tle the guests adjourned to the parlors for the Question 
Class. 

feel a little like criticising your questions to- 
night,” remarked John King as he took out the first 
one and unfolded it. “How can I give a good answer to 
a poor question? It takes as much wisdom to ask aright 
as to answer. However I won’t be too severe. Only 
some of you must not be disappointed at your answers 
to-night. The fault lies in the way you have put it, 
some of you.” 

Question. “Why do more women than men unite 
with the church?” 

“Because there are more of them to start with. 
Then there is more time given in very many Christian 
homes to the religious training of girls than of boys. 
And besides all that, a false theory of life has made very 
many parents believe that a boy cannot grow up as good 


208 


JOHy KING’S 


as a girl, that he must be a little wild, that it is natural 
for him to sow his wild oats. There is a difference in 
the sexes on the emotional side. A woman is more easily 
excited to tears or tenderness than a man. Some people 
think a woman is by nature more trustful and more 
inclined to believe in religious truths than men. I don’t 
believe that myself. I think the reason more women 
than men are found in churches lies back in the past 
false training of boys and girls in Christian homes. The 
double standard of morals and of conduct is responsible 
for most of the difference between men and women reli- 
giously.” 

Question. ^^You said awhile ago that you believed 
foot ball w’as a good game for college students to play. ‘ 
Is not the game on the whole brutal and degrading as 
shown by the recent spectacles of games played between 
large college teams in New England?” 

have somewhat changed my mind since answering 
the question some time ago. The manner in which rep- 
resentatives of some of the great colleges have played the 
game is a disgrace to all true courage and manhood. 
If I were president of one of those colleges I would 
use my authority to stop such brutality. Hundreds of 
the spectators at one of these games said it was the 
most disgusting exhibition, no better, no more elevating 


QUESTION CLASS. 


209 


than a bull fight or a prize fight. Many a Christian 
business man vowed he would take his son out of an 
institution that encouraged such sports. Yes, the game 
is in danger of being ruined with the American people 
unless a speedy stop is put to its professional black- 
guardism. The game can be played decently. That it 
has so often been abused of late is exceedingly unfor- 
tunate. But no college can afford to encourage any- 
thing that turns its students into raving, maddened ani- 
mals for an hour on Thanksgiving Day.’’ 

Question. ^Tf a man is out of work, has a large fam- 
ily dependent on him and cannot get work of any kind 
and is in need of food, fuel and clothing for himself and 
family, what had he better do? Beg or steal?” 

^There is nothing criminal in begging. There is in 
stealing. If I were that man myself I would of course 
beg for my family before I would steal for them. Steal- 
ing would cause them more misery than ever and if I 
were caught and put in jail for it some one would have 
to beg for them. In a choice between two courses like 
this there ought not to be any hesitation. It is a dread- 
ful position for a man to confront but committing a 
crime will not better it any. It will always make it 
worse. There ought not to be sucli a possibility before 
any man. That there is such a possibility before many 


210 


JOUy KING’S 


a working man in this country and the world to-day, 
ought to make all you young people do some hard think- 
ing and doing, the result of which will make such condi- 
tions less common in the future/’ 

Question. ^^Is the use of whisky, brandy, wine and 
beer absolutely necessary in a great many cases as it is 
claimed, for medicinal purposes? Why does a state that 
has prohibition laws need to permit unlimited drug 
stores to sell liquor under the law, as medicine? Isn’t 
it bought in most cases for a beverage just the same as 
if bought in a saloon?” 

^^There is a city of less than fifty thousand people 
in a prohibition state where thirty-five drug stores have 
permits to sell intoxicating liquors for medicinal and 
scientific purposes. One month the sale from these 
drug stores amounted to over six thousand. That is to 
say, six thousand or more persons most of them appar- 
ently able-bodied men, claimed that they needed any- 
where from a pint of whisky to three bottles of beer 
for rheumatism, malaria, cold, sick headache, and weak 
stomach. For all these ills that flesh is heir to, intox- 
icating liquors was the only sufficient remedy. It sim- 
ply means of course that in that prohibition state the 
people have elected to have special saloons disguised as 
drug stores. As for the need of liquor as a medicine 


QUESTION CLASS. 


211 


I have never believed in it and the necessity for it is 
very much exaggerated. There is a hospital in a city of 
the old world which is run on strictly total abstinence 
principles. Not a drop of alcohol in any form is ever 
given to a patient in any case. It is claimed that the 
cures from this hospital exceed those of other hospitals 
where alcohol is used as a medicine. Eecent arctic 
explorers who have gone into the frozen north farther 
than man ever went before, have not taken a drop of 
liquor with them on their journeys and they have en- 
dured the cold as well as others who have carried whisky 
and brandy with them. It has been proved in the Ger- 
man army hospitals that beer drinkers are far more 
liable to die of gun shot wounds than abstainers, and 
steps are being taken to prevent so much drinking in 
the army. I would be willing to risk it myself if all 
the alcohol on earth were destroyed as a medicine. I 
never felt the need of it. But other men seem to be so 
sickly that nothing but three or four weekly or monthly 
visits to a drug store can keep them from dying of some 
dreadful disease.” 

Question. the time ever come, do you think, 

when the tyranny of fashion in very much of woman’s 
dress will give way to something more comfortable and 
sensible?” 


212 


JOH^^ KING’S 


hope SO. And not only woman’s dress but very 
many fashionable and absurd articles of men’s clothing, 
tooth pick shoes for example. I hope none of you 
young men ever wear those tooth pick shoes?” 

There was a shuffling of feet in the room as of sev- 
eral pairs of shoes being drawn under chairs and some of 
the girls looked expressively around but John King did 
not appear to notice. He smiled and took up another 
question. 

Question. ^AVould you advise young people to read 
very much fiction?” 

'^They ought to read some fiction. If you mean, 
ought they to devour love stories or detective stories or 
exciting French novels of course I should say no. But 
fiction of the right sort is always good reading. It is 
as natural and healthy for a young person to read a good 
novel as it is to look at a beautiful picture or admire 
an artistic grouping of color.” 

Question. really cannot afford to buy any Christ- 
mas presents this year. I owe other bills. I haven’t 
paid for my winter hat. But if I don’t get presents for 
some people they will think I am stingy and mean. 
What is my duty? Ought I to buy Christmas gifts 
nnless I can afford to?” 

H was in a Boston store one day just before Christ- 


QUESTION CLASS. 


2ia 

mas time and among the crowd of shoppers I saw one 
nicely dressed woman who had her arms full of bundles 
smiling and chatting with another woman who had just 
come in. 

^Ah, you have your hands full/ said the new comer. 

^Yes, I had to buy at least ten dollars’ worth of 
presents for people I don’t really care about. Great 
nuisance, isn’t it?’ She went away laughing and the 
other woman said to a companion, “^Do you know, to 
my positive knowlege that woman owes her dressmaker 
ten dollars and her poor sewing girl has been repeatedly 
to her house and cannot g^t the money. And yet she 
thinks she is celebrating the birth of Christ by getting 
those people she doesn’t care for ten dollars’ worth of 
presents while the dressmaker probably needs the money 
to buy food and fuel. It’s a shame!’ Shame indeed! 
Celebrating the birth of Christ! No, I should say you 
have no right to buy Christmas gifts if you cannot afford 
it or if other people who have need of the money are 
going to suffer from your foolish extravagance. It is 
wicked to celebrate Christmas that way. A good deal 
of the mad rush in the stores at Christmas time is as 
pagan as if Christ had never come into the world at all. 
You can show your love for your friends without caus- 
ing distress and indebtedness you ought not to incur. 


214 


jom KING’S 


The beautiful simple custom of exchanging some little 
token of affection has become degraded into a great 
mercantile opportunity by the holiday trade and in 
much of it Christ is not only forgotten but directly 
disgraced and misrepresented to the world/’ 

It was this week that Victoria had a new experience 
that brought a new factor into her life and must be 
related now. She had been to the Symphony and had 
played before the usual fashionable, richly-dressed, bril- 
liant audience. The Symphony was unusually well 
attended that winter. When she came out it was begin- 
ning to rain and she took a cab. She usually rode home 
with one of the other ladies who sang in the company 
and who lived not far from her on the north side. But 
to-night she happened to be going the other way and 
Victoria was alone. It was about eleven o’clock. When 
the cab drew up to the river there was a little delay for 
some reason and the cab stopped on the bridge. Vic- 
toria sat back looking out through the mist at the lights 
on the river and humming over some strains of the even- 
ing’s music. She felt happy and hopeful. Victor had 
written her again telling of his engagement to sing in a 
good London company. She had received the letter 
that morning. Her success in the Symphony was grat- 
ifying to her. She had won her place with the public 


QUESTION CLASS. 


215 


and she felt assured of the future, financially. Her 
heart was light and the world seemed not such a very 
bad place after all, even as she saw it dripping and dirty 
through the window. 

Finally the cab moved on the bridge a little farther 
and then stopped again. There was some delay about 
the draw. Victoria lowered the window a little on the 
side away from the rain and put her head out a little. 
As she did so, she saw a girl. She might have been 
eighteen or twenty years old, standing on the foot pas- 
senger’s bridge looking down at the river. The light 
from the cab lamp and the brighter rays from one of 
the bridge lights brought the girl’s face into full view. 
She was very pretty. There was an unmistakable daint- 
iness and purity about her that attracted Victoria and 
something in the lines of the countenance that reminded 
her of her old invalid friend, Aura> 

But more than anything else that touched Victoria 
was the complete look of despair and desolation and 
utter hopelessness on the girl’s face. Victoria had been 
in the slums, she had stood by poor creatures in the 
hospitals, she had even become well enough acquainted 
with the struggles of the sewing girls to understand the 
depths of despair to which they often sank. With all 
her affectionate sympathy her heart went out to this 


JOHN KING>8 


iil(S 

stranger. The resemblance to Aura intensified her feel- 
ing. It was not necessary to tell her that here was a 
human being in need of human love and shelter. She 
might be even now thinking of taking her own 
life. Victoria thought of all this suddenly as she 
swiftly recalled the fact printed in the papers only 
a little while before of a girl who had thrown her- 
self off the end of the very draw bridge where she 
now was. 

All this took but a few seconds. Victoria was not a 
woman of senseless or foolish impulse but she was a 
woman grown now, with a growing longing in her heart 
to do good in the great world. She yielded to the God- 
given impulse that told her here was need of a living 
love to save a despairing soul and, opening the door of 
the cab she stepped out, and asking the driver to hold 
the cab there a minute swiftly crossed over the short 
distance between her and the stranger and touched her 
on the shoulder. 

The girl turned around and, trembling, faced Vic- 
toria. There was no mistaking the divine sympathy 
that made Victoria’s face as beautiful as an unfallen 
angel’s. With one bound her soul had leaped that cold 
wide gulf that separates people who have never met 
through the formalities of social custom and the girl 


QUESTION CLASS. 


217 


knew that there was human love and sympathy in the 
world yet. 

Victoria said simply, 

^^Dear, you are in trouble. The good God made us 
both. I once had a friend who had a face like yours. 
For her sake I want to help you. Will you let me? 
Come! Let us get into the cab. There is a God and He 
is good.’’ 

The girl uttered a great sob. Then she clutched at 
A^ictoria’s arm as if she were falling, falling down some 
hideous gulf and then as if in a dream she allowed 
Victoria to half lead, half carry her to the cab. Vic- 
toria entered behind her and shut the door. And once 
within, the girl went into the most violent hysterics. 
ATctoria kept her arms about her. The cab moved on. 
AVhen it reached the house Victoria succeeded in get- 
ting her rescued soul into her own room. The rain 
began to pour down in torrents. It beat on the win- 
dows like the spirits of defeated demons. And Victoria 
kneeled by the side of her bed, by the side of the 
drenched form of the stranger, drenched and beaten like 
a storm-beaten Easter lily, and prayed for her as angels 
pray, looking down with tears upon the mighty sorrow 
and suffering of the wicked cities of men on the earth. 


CHAPTER X. 


S the night wore on, Victoria grew alarmed over 
the condition of her charge and sent her 
father’s nurse out for the doctor. When he 
came he succeeded in quieting the girl but the 
shock to her system from exposure and the sub- 
sequent reaction due to Victoria’s rescue of her 
led to an illness which lasted nearly a month. 
During the latter part of that time Victoria learned 
a part of her strange history and in the weeks 
that followed the girl confided to her all the story of her 
brief but eventful struggle for existence. 

Her name was Rachel Brooks. It was the same 
old story of genteel poverty in a proud family living in 
a small town. Rachel had endured it as long as she 
could and at last when matters in the home had 
reached a crisis she had come away to the great city 
determined to make her own living and be independent 
of every one. She was a beautiful seamstress and at first 
succeeded in getting work in a large establishment 
where more than fifty girls were employed. She might 
have succeeded in providing for all the necessities, small 



J0H2i KING^S QUE^TIO^ CLASS, 


210 


as her pay was if she had not been taken ill after being 
in the city a few months. The close confinement, the 
long hours, the insufficient and coarse food at the cheap 
boarding-house, the homesickness, the lack of friendly 
acquaintances all wore upon the girl’s sensitive spirit 
and one day she lay down tired out in her little room 
under the roof of the boarding house and when she 
came back to full knowledge of her surroundings she 
had been ill with fever for two months. What little 
money she had been able to save was gone for doctors 
and medicines and attendance. Her place at the estab- 
lishment was lost. She wandered over the city seeking 
for work. Her pretty face, even more delicate and 
refined since her illness attracted notice, and shame be it 
said of human kind, insult. She grew desperate. There 
was no help to come from home. Why did she not hunt 
up some good Christian people, go to some church, tell 
her story to some one of the many benevolent societies 
in the great city? Surely there are always in Christian 
America numbers of warm loving Christian homes and 
hearts ready to rescue such souls as hers. Yes, but 
how^ get the two together? Rachel was lost in that 
great whirl of humanity. The eager haste and indiffer- 
ence of the world smote her with desolation. It was a 
time of great distress for the working wage earning 


220 


JOHN KING’S 


world. Hundreds of girls like her were hunting for 
places. At one establishment where she went in answer 
to a small advertisement she saw in a paper, she found 
seventy-five eager, anxious applicants. At last her 
boarding mistress refused to give her any more credit. 
She had sold every article of any value she possessed 
and given the money she received to her landlady and 
that afternoon had left the house. She had no plans. 
In telling her story to Victoria she could not recall 
where she went. Near midnight after having walked 
probably miles without anything to eat, without pro- 
tection from the cold rain, with a fire of despair eat- 
ing into her soul she came upon the bridge. She had 
been there some time before Victoria touched her. In 
that time the draw had swung around twice. 

Once she had been at the end next the water when 
the bridge swung open. She had thought wildly of 
the peace and rest that might be found at the bottom 
of the river. Her brain was on fire. Her body reeled 
and trembled. She was drenched with the cold, re- 
morseless rain. She was looking into Hell within and 
without. There was no God any more. And no 
heaven. And no love in the world. The universe 
was a great curse and life was a part of that curse. 

It was just then that Victoria had touched her 


QUESTION CLASS, 


221 


and spoken to her. If an angel had appeared to draw 
her np into the bliss and warmth and rest of heaven, 
Eachel could not have clutched him with more eager- 
ness. As she turned and took hold of Victoria it 
seemed to her as though she had already jumped off 
the bridge and the cold black water would roll over 
her forever unless she seized this unexpected deliverer. 
So she clung to Victoria like a drowning person. For 
the time being Victoria was God to her. A miracle. 
And the poor soul sank into the weeks^ illness that 
naturally followed such excitement, conscious all 
through it of the gentle loving face that bent over 
her and nursed her back again into the warmth and 
love and faith she had come so near losing forever 
out of her heart. 

One day as she was sitting up and growing stronger 
with every breath in the atmosphere of Victorians strong 
cheerful presence, Eachel said, 

'G must be getting out to look for work soon. I 
shall never be able to repay you for your great kind- 
ness to me.” Her eyes filled with tears and over 
her face began to steal the old anxious look as 
she looked forward to the renewal of the struggle for 
existence. 

^‘Yoii arc not going to leave me at all. That is 


222 


JOHN KING’S 


all settled. You are going to stay here with me until 
I tell you to go,” Victoria spoke with authority. 

^^But you have your father to care for,” faltered 
Rachel, whose heart could not resist the longing to 
accept the haven of rest which Victoria lovingly of- 
fered her. 

“You can help me care for him. You must not 
say another word. You have come to me in such a 
way that nothing could satisfy me except your making 
this your home.” Victoria went over and put her 
arm about Rachel. The girl yielded to her with tears 
running over the pale face, and from that hour a great 
friendship dated, which death itself cannot sever, for 
it is of those friendships that belong to the endless 
life. 

After that it seemed to the friends as if they had 
always known each other. Victoria’s father took a 
wonderful liking to Rachel. She was the gentlest, 
most thoughtful nurse. Although for a long time she 
was not strong enough to do the work of a profes- 
sional nurse she rendered service in other ways such 
as a hired stranger would not generally give. The 
most perfect understanding existed between her and 
Victoria. After a time Rachel found a position and 
had the satisfaption of being financially independent. 


QUESTION CLASS. 


223 


That was after Mr; StanwooTs death. But before 
that she remained at the house, seldom going out ex- 
cept once in a while to accompany Victoria to a Sym- 
phony. She was passionately fond of music and her 
love of Victoria was increased by a certain worship 
of her great gift with the violin. As for Victoria 
she came to love the soul she had saved with a love 
that grew every day. Eachel was like a younger sis- 
ter. The heart ache of Victoria over Victor’s wasted 
and broken career found some soothing in the com- 
plete devotion Kachel showed. Since Aura’s death 
hers was the only life that had come close enough to 
satisfy her longing for companionship. 

One Monday night Victoria took Rachel to the 
Question Class. She was shy and a little reluctant 
to go, but her sweet face pleased the company and 
after the first awkwardness she enjoyed the easy infor- 
mality of everything. There was no more eager listen- 
er that night than Rachel. It was all so new to her 
and one or two of the questions touched her very 
closely. John King began as usual with a little pre- 
liminary talk, to take out the questions from the little 
olive wood box on the table. 

“We are behind on the answers and as I under- 
stand some of the class are impatient to hear their 


224 


JOHN KING’S 


questions taken up I will condense the answers to-night. 
You must remember that I am not trying to give 
you complete answers at any time. They are mostly 
suggestive.” 

Question. you think it is right for the gov- 

ernment to spend three million dollars in building 
a great war ship when the same amount of money 
would give ten times as many persons necessary em- 
ployment and produce things that we need a great 
deal more than war ships?” 

good many Christian people think that it is 
absolutely necessary for the United States to have a 
large navy in order to preserve the peace and dignity 
of our country at home and defend the rights of our 
citizens abroad. I do not hold that view myself, as 
I believe that great standing armies and navies are 
a source of constant drain and enormous taxation on 
the people of a country and the money spent in equip- 
ping and maintaining them is to my mind unnecessary. 
So I do not believe this country needs to spend three 
million dollars on a war ship so much as it needs to 
spend it on something more useful and urgent, demand- 
ed by the human misery and poverty of the times.” 

Question. ‘Tf goodness is mightier than evil, why 
does evil appear to have the upper hand?” 


question class. 


225 


"'Appearances are deceitful. We do not sec 
the end from the beginning. And that is the reason 
evil appears to have the better of the world. Then 
again wickedness gets more free advertising than good- 
ness. Every daily paper eagerly prints accounts of 
crimes. Crimes are news. Good deeds, daily virtue, 
temperance, Christian homes, truthfulness, honesty, the 
papers don’t print long columns about these every day 
acts. They are not news. They are too common. 
The church does a thousand good deeds that the world 
never hears of. Evil seems to have it all its own way. 
But it is temporary. The devil is not superior to God. 
He is not even His equal. He is inferior. And in 
the great end of all things he shall be finally over- 
thrown.” 

Question. "Hot more than one out of every five 
young men in the United States is a member ol a 
church or an attendant on church services. Is that a 
proof of the weakness of the churches or what?” 

"A proof of the weakness of the young men, I 
should say. The church has a good deal to answer 
for, but I don’t believe in loading all the responsibility 
upon her. The greatest reason wdiy four out of five 
young men are not in any way connected with the 
church is because they prefer to belong to other or- 


226 


JOHN KING’S 


ganizations or to none at all. They do not want to 
give np their vices or their selfishness and become 
disciples of the lowly Christ. It is just as true now 
as it was in Christ’s own life time. Men will not come 
unto Him that they might have eternal life.” 

Question. ^^Should our love for God be like our 
love for our earthly friends?” 

^^Yes. God is a father. We are His children. 
How else shall we love Him? The love we have for 
Him should be like that we give our earthly friends 
only greater in degree. For we owe Him more. He 
has done more for us. He is able to do more for 
us in the great future. Our love for our earthly 
friends where it is pure and true is just like the love 
we should have for God. Don’t you remember Christ 
said to those who had visited the sick and fed the 
hungry and ministered to the sinful, ‘For as much as 
ye have done it to one of these least (human beings) 
my brethren, ye have done it unto me.’ Love for 
humanity is an expression of our love to God. God 
is not so different from us that he must be loved in 
a different manner. He is a father. He is like us. 
We are like Him. We have the same likeness. We 
are made in His image. Love is not two things. It 
is eternally one and the same. And whenever we love 


QUESTION CLASS. 


227 


with unselfish, pure, joyful love one of our earthly 
friends we are at the same time loving God. There 
is no other way to love Him.” 

Question. ^"What is Hell?” 

‘^The Bible speaks of Hell as a place, just as it 
speaks of Heaven as a place. It also speaks of it as 
a condition of the soul, a condition of rebellion and 
of misery, brought about by a refusal to do the will 
of God. Hell is the absence of God in the soul whether 
that soul be in any particular place or not. Hell 
is a condition where the soul is out of harmony with 
the will of God.” 

Question. ^Hs it Christian for society to spend so 
much time and money in pleasure?” 

“It certainly is not Christian to spend so much time 
and money on pleasure as some people in society spend. 
Pleasure is right and God wants us to have happy, 
joyful times, but it certainly is not Christian for peo- 
ple to go night after night to receptions and parties 
and theaters and balls and concerts without ever visit- 
ing the poor, caring for the distressed, or helping lift 
the burdens of a sinful world. I know a woman who 
moves in society a good deal who was asked one day 
for her membership fee to some benevolent organiza- 
tion to which she belonged. 'Oh,’ she said to the vis- 


228 


JOHN KING’S 


itor who had come for the money, really cannot 
pay that now. I cannot afford it. You will have 
to come again at the end of the month.’ The next 
caller was a' lady friend, and the society woman be- 
gan to show her three new dresses that she had just 
received from New York. The least expensive of them 
cost one hundred and fifty dollars. That evening with 
two friends she attended an opera at an expense of 
four dollars and a half. When the poor humble vis- 
itor calls for the five dollar fee at the end of the month 
that society woman will give it to her hut she will 
feel as if it was so much money thrown away and 
she will at the same time feel as if she had done her 
part for the benevolence of the district and proceed 
to spend five dollars for something she doesn’t need 
just because it is pretty. There are hundreds and 
thousands of people in this city who spend their whole 
lives in going to parties or entertainments. If they go 
to church they do it because it’s fashionable. If they 
go to visit the poor they go because it is a fad to 
visit the poor. Their whole lives are given up to 
pleasure. If such a use of time and money is Christ- 
ian then I do not know what Christian is. Of course 
it is not Christian. Think of the sewing girls get- 
ting less than three dollars a week wages, living in 


QUESTION CLASS. 229 

attics, going to ruin because of the devilish competi- 
tion of the money makers, and then ask yourself if 
God has not some other and higher uses for humanity 
and money than the wicked waste of them in selfish 
pleasures day after day. This is the righteous con- 
demnation of much of society, that it is not spending 
its time and money where it is most needed, but on 
itself in a continual round of personal pleasures that 
do not relieve the wants of the world nor make those 
who seek after pleasure any better able or any more 
willing to relieve distress or make the world better. 
Society will have a good deal to answer for at the 
last great day, not for being criminal or licentious or 
brutal or wicked, but for an awful waste of two of 
God’s most precious gifts, time and money.” 

Question. ^Tsn’t it true that money can buy almost 
any thing?” 

^‘^No. It’s power is very limited. It can’t buy the 
most valuable and beautiful things in the world. It 
cannot buy brains, nor common sense, nor virtue, nor 
character, nor forgiveness of sins, nor love, nor eternal 
life, nor peace of conscience, nor freedom from death. 
The purchasing power of money is exceedingly lim- 
ited. It can buy a great deal that is good as well 
as a great deal that is bad. It can build churches ns 


230 


JOHN KINOES 


well as saloons. It can build colleges and endow them 
as well as erect houses for gambling and vice. But 
it is powerless to buy the endless things that depend 
on the eternal character of man. The power of money 
is seen by what it cannot buy, not by what it can buy.’’ 

Question. ^Ts a Christian necessarily perfect?” 

^^No. That is not the definition of a Christian, 
if by Christian you mean a person who never does 
anything wrong, who is sinless. A Christian is one 
who is trying to be like Christ. He is constantly grow- 
ing better. But he is not necessarily as good as he 
can be now. He has a great deal to learn and is far 
from perfection.” 

Question. ^^What do you think is most in need 
of reforming in the political life of our country?” 

^^The intense partisanship, which gives rise to a 
host of evils like the spoils system and unholy alliances 
with the whisky power and the great trusts in order 
to gain party votes. If it were not for the narrow 
partisanship of our political life we might have some 
hope of municipal reform and a getting together of 
all good men regardless of party for the common good. 
But as long as church members and saloon keepers 
and gamblers all go to the polls and vote the same 
ticket, what is going to be done to purify the body 


QUESTION CLASS, 


231 


politic? And as long as men go into political life 
for the spoils of office and regard a good fat salary 
in the public pay as so much just reward for their 
political services, where are the statesmanship and pat- 
riotism which alone can preserve a nation in righteous- 
ness? The horde of hungry office seekers at every 
change of state or national party administration is a 
living illustration of one of the greatest evils of our 
political life. And it all comes from a partisanship 
that puts success of the party above every other con- 
sideration. There are thousands of men in this coun- 
try who believe more in their party than in their 
church. They will give more money and more time 
and more enthusiasm to their party than they ever 
give to their church. It can be truly said of such 
men they are more partisan than Christian.” 

Question. ^^How do you account for the increase 
of lynch law in this country?” 

^^A great deal of it is no doubt due to a growing 
contempt of the courts and a feeling of distrust as 
to justice being done owing to many failures to con- 
vict and punish the guilty. Then there is also with- 
out doubt a laxness among the people, especially in 
some sections of the country which is due to a lack 
of self restraint taught by Christian training. In very 


232 


JOHJV KING^S 


many sections, the religious influences have of late years 
been fewer. The black and white in large regions are 
growing up in ignorance of pure Christianity and for- 
eign immigration of the lawless element has added to the 
peril already existing. There is no remedy for this state 
of things except a complete regeneration of society 
through the Christianizing of it in every particular.” 

Question. “Should a young girl from fifteen to 
seventeen years old keep company with a young man 
regularly?” 

“A young girl from fifteen to seventeen years old 
ought to be keeping company with a good high school 
or academy or college. A young girl of that age who 
is regularly thinking about the young men or allow- 
ing them to keep regular company with her ought 
to have some good advice from a good mother or father. 
Or if she has good common sense herself she will see 
that she ought to be giving her undivided attention 
to an education, or if for any good reason she cannot 
go to school, the time between fifteen and seventeen 
ought to be used as years of preparation for the duties 
of home life. Of course there are exceptions. Wom- 
en have been courted and married at seventeen and 
have made excellent wives and mothers, but as a gen- 
eral thing with the average girl or young woman it 


QUESTION CLASS. 


233 


is quite safe to say that between fifteen and seven- 
teen she ought not to be keeping regular company 
with any young man. She ought to be giving the 
strength and thought of those years to intellectual de- 
velopment, undisturbed by sentimental or foolish or 
premature love affairs.’’ 

Question. ^’How much of my income ought I to 
give to benevolence?” 

^^How large is your income? What are your obli- 
gations? How much do you owe? Who is depend- 
ent on you? I don’t know your circumstances. I 
cannot ans’wer your question definitely. You will have 
to determine the amount yourself from a consideration 
of all the facts in your own case, your ability, your 
opportunities, your responsibility. If you have a large 
income you probably ought to give a good deal.” 

Question. ’^What is the greatest temptation to 
young men in this age and country?” 

^The temptation to place physical and intellectual 
or political or financial power in the first place in his 
ambition to become some one or do something. These 
are four great gods of the national world most young 
men fall down and worship. And the greatest temp- 
tation before them lies in their worshiping these pow- 
ers so constantly that they forget the God of all the 


JOHN KING>^^ 


^34 

earth and heaven, their relation to him as immortal 
souls and the value of the spiritual as compared with 
the temporal. The great temptation to all young men 
lies along this particular line. The exaltation and 
glorification of the material and the ignoring or de- 
spising of the spiritual or eternal.’^ 

When Victoria and Rachel reached home that even- 
ing Victoria asked Rachel how she enjoyed the Ques- 
tion Class. 

^Tt was splendid!” replied Rachel with an enthusi- 
asm not commonly shown by her. 

Victoria was pleased. 

‘T thought you would like it; the people are so 
interesting, too, when you come to know them.” 

‘^Who was the gentleman we met when we first 
went in? The one who was talking with the minis- 
ter?” 

^^That was Mr. Bruce. He is quite a famous au- 
thor.” 

“And his friend, as you said, the one whose right 
hand is missing, Mr. Howard, what is he?” 

“Oh, he is a newspaper man. He has charge of 
one department in Mr. King’s new paper.” 

They talked along a little while about different 
things said, and discussed some of the questions and 


QUESTION CLASS. 


235 


answers. At last, after a pause, Victoria said, 
you know, Eachel, it seems a mystery to me that peo- 
ple can go on giving so much of their thought to little 
things when the world is so full of human misery. 
That was the question that touched me most tonight. 
That one about society spending so much time and 
money on pleasure.’’ 

‘T think perhaps that made me think as much as 
any. But I don’t see, Victoria, how I can do very 
much to help matters any. You are sacrificing some- 
thing every day. I wish I could do something.” 

^^You do. I need you. That may be selfish. But 
I feel the need of just what you have brought to me.” 

Eachel was silent awhile. Then she said almost 
timidly, 

' ^^Sometime you will not be satisfied with what I 
can give you. I will not be what you ought to have.” 

^^Why not?” asked Victoria innocently. Then she 
suddenly seemed to understand what Eachel meant. 
She went over by the side of Eachel and kneeling 
down by her side, said with the most charming affec- 
tion in tone and manner, 

^^Dear, strange as it may seem to you I have never 
had a lover. I think it is because my life has been 
too busy to ^keep regular company’ with any one,” 


23G 


JOHUJ KING’S 


“But you are more than seventeen/’ said llachel 
demurely. 

“More than seventeen! Why I am going on twen- 
t3^-four. No, no, Rachel, you must not be afraid I 
am going to leave you on that account. I have no 
room for any one but you and father and Victor and 
my violin. That is as much as a little body like me 
can manage.” And so their talk ended that night. 

The weeks went by and still there was little change 
in the condition of Mr. Stanwood. Finally one even- 
ing when Victoria was at a concert and Rachel was 
watching by the sick man the great change came. It 
was so sudden that Rachel was frightened. The doc- 
tor was sent for in great haste. But before he could 
reach the house the frail, sin-smitten diseased body had 
yielded up its spirit. There had been a gleam of con- 
sciousness at the last, just the murmuring of his child- 
ren’s names and that was all. Victoria was sent for 
and left the concert hall knowing that a crisis was 
at hand. She was not prepared, however, for the end 
at once. It came to her like a sudden blow. She re- 
proached herself for not being at her father’s side, 
although no one could have foreseen how or when 
the end would come. 

Rachel was worth everything to Victoria at this time. 


QUESTION CLASS. 


237 


She showed unexpected resources of strength. Vic- 
toria wished the news sent to Victor. She would cable 
to London. She sent the brief message, “Father died 
last evening,” and directed it to the care of the man- 
ager of the company with which Victor was engaged. 
It would be more likely to reach him that way. 

An answer to the cable came the next morning. 
When it was brought in by Rachel, Victoria was stand- 
ing by the coffin that contained the body of her father. 
She took the message and read it, “Victor supposed 
to be on the Continent. Left my company charged 
with gambling and forgery.” 

Surely Victorians cup of sorrow was a full one. 
Even Rachel could not help her at this moment. The 
girl shut the door softly and went out, leaving Vic- 
toria alone with her dead, and with her God. 


CHAPTER XI. 


YEAR has passed by since the death of Vic- 
toria’s father. A year filled with large ex- 
perience and growing usefulness. Into her 
life has passed a great sorrow and it has left her nobler, 
sweeter, more compassionate of the world’s suffering. 
The greatest trial she has to bear is the knowledge of 
Victor’s ruin. Since the day when she stood by the cof- 
fin where Rachel brought her the cable from London 
telling of Victor’s fall in his old passion Victoria has not 
heard a word of him. She does not know whether he 
is living or dead. She tries to comfort herself with 
the hope that he is repentant and living obscurely but 
honestly somewhere and that sometime he will come 
back to her and together they will go on to live a better 
and more happy life. All that is a hope she cherishes. 
It makes her face serious often. But in spite of all 
that, it is a face of great beauty. Victoria without 
knowing it has grown beautiful. And to grow beau- 
tiful without knowing too much about it is the mark 
of a great and lovable character. 

Rachel is her constant companion now. The two 



JOEV Kinoes QUESTION CLASS. 


239 


live together with a housekeeper and a cousin of Vic- 
toria’s father, an elderly woman who came shortly af- 
ter Mr. Stanwood’s death. The two girls, young wom- 
en they are now, find their lives very full and busy. 
AVith all their duties, however, they find time to work 
in the slum district organized by John King’s church, 
and some of their happiest, most interesting hours are 
passed in the work. King and Richard Bruce and 
Tom Howard with other members of the Question Class 
are frequent workers in the same district. The music 
classes organized by Victoria are held in the ware- 
house building where Tom and Richard used to teach 
night school. The building has been entirely made 
over now and is a warm, well-lighted commodious place 
for all kinds of industrial work. To the surprise of 
every one excepting John King, Rachel proves one of 
the best workers of them all. Her brief but sharp ex- 
perience as a sewing girl has given her a knowledge of 
the trials and temptations of the .working girls in the 
city and she has organized a plan for helping them 
which John King thinks may in time revolutionize 
the condition of the workers who sew for the sweat 
shops. 

One evening after the different classes had gone 
away, John King and Richard, Tom, Victoria and 


240 


JORt^ KING’S 


Rachel lingered in the Hall to have a little talk to- 
gether about the work of the Institutional Church. Af- 
ter a little while Tom and Richard began to speak of 
the old times when they first knew John King. 

“Remember the first night you came down here, 

Tomr 

“Remember it? Well I should think so!” Tom 
spoke half seriously, half humorously. “That was the 
night Dick gave his great untamed sleight of hand 
show,” he went on, turning to Rachel, who had never 
heard the story of the loss of Tom’s right hand. “I 
helped him. We shook money out of empty handker- 
chiefs, baked an omelet in my hat and ruined the hat, 
picked a handful of matches out of a boy’s hair and 
did all the regulation tricks to a full house. We 
would have scored a complete success if it had not been 
for that boy ^Con.’” Tom paused thoughtfully and 
then went on. 

“You see Dick was up there on the platform and 
Con, the worst boy I ever knew, even down here, threw 
an inkstand. It struck Dick right in the face and 
knocked him over. I thought he was killed and I 
jumped down and went for Con. It was the biggest 
kind of a fight then. Foot ball was a prize kinder- 
garten to the scrimmage we had. I don’t remember 


QUESTION CLASS. 


241 


very well how it happened. I was never so full of 
rage and fight in my life. I know if I could I would 
have flung that boy through the window over there, 
sash and all. I know I hoped it would kill him. 
I was not a Christian then. Well, Con got out his 
knife and stabbed me right through the palm of my 
hand. Do you know, Mr. King, I have felt that stab 
in my hand hundreds of times since the hand was 
taken off?” 

^Wery common sensation in case of amputation.” 

“Very uncommonly uncomfortable too, I can tell 
you. Well, I can remember struggling, and a faint- 
ness came over me and a blow in the face nearly fin- 
ished me and I was falling when the door there burst 
open and Mr. King and some officers rushed in and 
the boys rushed out, all except Con, who was caught, 
and then I fainted away. I didn’t know anything 
more until I came to in Mr. King’s house.” 

“What became of the boy?” 

“He was killed in jail by one of the prisoners. It 
was a great shock to Tom. Those were wild times, 
Tom, when the big railroad strikes were on. Kemem- 
ber how I tried to take your place on the Daily Uni- 
verse as special reporter?” 

“Tried to! You did it. Better than I ever could. 


242 


JOHN KIXG>S 


And all that time I lay around useless. I gave Mr. 
King no end of trouble.” 

^^You were a very good sick person, Tom, only 
your appetite was something alarming when you be- 
gan to get well.” 

should think,” said Rachel a little timidly, ^That 
you would dread to come into this room having such 
memories of it.” 

^AVell I would, perhaps,” said Tom, ^^only it has 
other memories now.” The minute he said it he 
turned red to think that perhaps the rest were think- 
ing his thought of the pleasant hours spent in the 
old hall with the new friends and workers, Victoria 
and Rachel. 

“I should think the loss of your hand would make 
it hard for you to carry on your work as a reporter,” 
said Rachel;^ nervously changing the subject. None 
of the others seemed to attach any significance to what 
Tom had said and he replied with a tone of relief, 

^^0, I learned to use my left hand. It was as 
much as my dearest friend could do, though, to read 
my efforts. Dick says it was like trying to decipher 
some of the Egyptian hieroglyphics on the mummy 
cases in the pyramids.” 

‘Tt was worse tlian that, ^liss Brooks,” said John 


QUESTION CLASS. 


243 


King winking at Kichard. ^‘Toin wrote me a note 
while he was practicing with his left hand and I don’t 
know to this day whether it was the answer to an in- 
vitation to dinner or a notice to be read from the pul- 
pit respecting a special offering for the work done Jiere. 
I was in such doubt about it that I filed it away in my 
famous Autograph Book and labeled it ^Interesting note 
from Alexander III., late Emperor of Eussia, — written 
on the eve of the attempt to blow up the winter pal- 
ace.’ ” 

^^Of course, Miss Brooks,” said Tom with a grin, 

have to bear all this because Mr. King and Eichard 
are jealous of my elegant penmanship. It is a well 
known fact that ministers and authors write such poor 
hands that magazines require those two classes of man- 
kind to typewrite everything they send in for publi- 
cation. I wish you could see some of my handwrit- 
ing.” 

Tom pulled up again suddenly as Eichard and John 
King laughed, and Eachel colored a little but looked 
all the prettier for it. The talk drifted on into plans 
concerning the work of the Institutional Department 
of the church and finally they went out, all walking 
along together up past John King’s house. He stopped 
a few minutes at the steps to chat a little and finally 


244 


JOffxV KINO’S 


said good night and went in, leaving the young peo- 
ple with a word of hearty thanks to them for their 
very efficient help in his beloved church work. 

^^Shall we take the cars?” asked Eichard, speaking 
for ^11 four. 

^^Let’s walk,” said Tom, who always loved the ex- 
ercise and never rode on the cable cars or in a car- 
riage or cab when he could help it. 

So they started for the north side, Eichard escort- 
ing Victoria and Tom giving his arm to Eachel, who 
was very quiet at first but soon grew quite talkative 
and even merry as Tom rattled on in his hearty man- 
ner telling some funny stories in connection with his 
old work as a city reporter. 

When they reached the bridge and started to cross, 
there was a delay owing to the draw being open, but 
Victoria and Eichard had been far enough ahead to 
pass over just before the draw opened. Eachel sud- 
denly grew very quiet. It was the bridge where Vic- 
toria had come to her that night so long ago, it seemed 
to her. Tom had never heard the story. He simply 
knew that Eachel had some good reason for regarding 
Victoria as her greatest friend. 

^‘^There was a girl threw herself off the end of this 
bridge once,” said Tom innocently. He was nervous 


QVE8TI0N CLASS. 


245 


and afraid Rachel was tired of him for being such poor 
company. remember writing it up for the Daily 
Universe. It was an awfully sad case. One of the 
girls in the tailor’s establishments who had lost her 
place and — ” 

Tom felt Rachel’s hand tremble on his arm 
‘^Uome!” she said, stepping forward, ‘^The bridge is mov- 
ing. Let us hurry across.” Tom felt as if he had 
made some blunder and wished he was at the bottom 
of the river. After they were well over and had 
walked a block or two on the other side, Rachel, whose 
agitation departed as quickly as it came, said, with 
some hesitation at first, then with complete frankness, 

“I ought to tell you, perhaps, Mr. Howard, that 
it was on that bridge that Victoria, Miss Stanwood, 
saved me from just such a. fate as that of the poor girl 
you mentioned. Pardon my manner. It all came 
over me like a new feeling after all these months as 
I stood there. I — I — thought maybe you knew.” 

‘H didn’t!” stammered Tom. Ht’s news to me. I 
beg your pardon. I hurt you.” 

^‘No! no, you didn’t mean to. It was a great ex- 
perience to me and — ” 

Rachel did not say any more and after an awk- 
ward pause Tom said, H’m awfully sorry.” Then he 


240 JOHN KING’S 

began to talk about Victoria and Eichard and John 
King and by the time the two reached the house Rachel 
seemed quite cheerful again. She asked him if he 
would not come in, but Richard was just coming down 
the steps and Tom thanked her, said good night and 
took Dick’s arm as the two turned and started to walk 
back to their rooms. 

The friends walked on without a word for some dis- 
tance. At length Richard, drawing Tom’s arm to his 
side, said in a voice that had a new meaning in it, 

^^Tom, old fellow, will you feel very bad if I tell 
you that I have begun to love some one else more than 
you?” 

^^Ko, I guess not. I’m ready to treat you in the 
same way.” 

Richard didn’t seem to hear what Tom said. He 
went on, 

H’m the happiest man in Chicago. I feel like 
shouting out the news into the streets.” 

^AVhat news?” said Tom. ^Tt’s pretty late for an 
evening edition.” 

‘'Tom,” said Richard suddenly but in a quiet tone, 
^‘Will you be the best man at a wedding pretty soon?” 

Tom stopped right in the middle of the sidewalk 
and drew a long breath. Then he said with a look 


QUESTION CLASS. 


2-lt 

and accent that Eichard was familiar with all through 
his college acquaintance, will if you will tell me 
how you proposed. That is, I will if I am not other- 
wise engaged myself at the time.” 

Eichard laughed. Then he said like one who feels 
that the dignity and wondrousness of loving is be3^ond 
the reach of any ordinary exhibition of humor — 

^^Tom, God has wonderfully blessed my life. Miss 
Stanwood, Victoria” (the name seemed to come easily 
to him), ^doves me. I didn’t know surely before to- 
night. I know it now.” 

knew it long ago,” said Tom, just as the two 
stepped upon the bridge. ^^Why didn’t you ask me? 
Dick, it is beautiful.” 

^^You mean she is.” 

^^Yes, of course. Dick, dear fellow, congratulations 
seems like a feeble word, doesn’t it? Or She? Every 
thing of course will be ^she’ now. I’ll get even with 
you, though. But say, old chum, what will you do, 
go on the stage, or will Miss Stanwood leave off play- 
ing and take to authorship?” 

‘Tom, I’ll throw you over into the river if you 
make any fun of — ” Eichard partly lifted Tom off his 
feet as he playfully swung along still clinging to Tom’s 


arm. 


248 


JOHN KING’^ 


“No, don’t,” said Tom soberly. The words re- 
called Eachel’s story. He was unusually reticent as 
Richard went on to talk of his own great happiness. 
As sometimes happens, even with large hearted natures 
like Richard’s such an experience for a little while ab- 
sorbed all his thoughts and Tom’s manner was not 
particularly noticed. Only when the two friends 
reached their rooms and went in Richard said, 

“Tom, I hope you will be as happy as I am some 
day.” 

“I hope I shall. But what shall I do for a best 
man in that case?” 

“Well, won’t I do?” 

“Not if both weddings are on the same day.” 

“0, well, we will arrange that when the time comes.” 
Richard laughed. Then he said looking earnestly and 
lovingly at his old chum, 

“Tom, if you are in love with Rachel why don’t 
you tell her so?” 

“If,” said Tom. “If water runs down hill. If the 
sun shines on a cloudless day. If, but there is no 
if about it.” 

“Tom,” said Richard, giving him a little love pat 
on the back, “Taint heart ne’er won fair lady.’ I 
don’t think your case is altogether hopeless.” 


QUESTION CLASS. 


219 


Tom shook his head somewhat doubtfully. Nev- 
ertheless he did not seem to be altogether despondent. 
He was heartily glad for Richard. He could not think 
of any one in all Chicago nearer his ideal for Richard’s 
■wife. And as for Richard himself he walked the streets 
next day the proudest most humbly glad and exultant 
soul on earth, he felt. And as for Victoria her romance 
had come to her so gradually, so naturally, so irresisti- 
bly that she gave her lover a heart that was capable 
of the utmost in sharing life’s fortunes of good or evil 
with equal faith and joy. She had come to know and 
admire Richard in the year’s acquaintance which rip- 
ened mutual friendship very fast, owing to their very 
frequent meetings at the Question Class and the church 
w'ork down at the hall. She had read all of Richard’s 
books and was surprised and delighted with them. He 
had rapidly w^on public favor and was counted to be 
one of the rising authors with a very high purpose in his 
writing. John King had told her a good deal of Rich- 
ard in one way and another at odd times. The story of 
his early struggles as a writer, his work in the coal 
yards, his volunteer work at the night school and many 
other details touched Victoria very deeply. It is not a 
great way from admiration to a deeper feeling. And 
Victoria, woman grown now, saw her life beginning a 


250 


JOHN KINOES 


new chapter. The earth’s old story, the divinest known 
to the human race, the experience sanctified and blessed 
by our Lord Himself, came into Victoria’s life and she 
did not try to drive it out. She could not if she would. 
For there is nothing in all the worldwide universe of 
God more divine and beautiful than the true love of 
man and woman, nothing more ordained of God than 
the home life of the human race. When Rachel came 
in that night Victoria very simply and frankly told her, 
thought,” said Rachel a little roguishly, ^That 
you were not ever going to leave me. You said some- 
thing of the kind once.” 

^^Great minds change,” laughed Victoria. She added 
gently, think I know some one who will look after 
you so that you won’t need me.” 

Rachel was sitting in front of an open fire but that 
is no reason w^hy her face should flush so full of color. 

don’t think,” Rachel spoke after a pause, H don’t 
think he will ever ask me.” 

^'Of course he will. And it will not be very long 
before I shall be doubj^^ liappy, dear, in your happiness 
as well as my own.” ‘ AGctoria said it with tears in her 
eyes and Rachel looked up and whispered to her, H 
am very glad for you.” 

When the Question Class met next time, John King 


QUEi^TlON CLAES. 


251 


said as he called it to order, ^^There is a very unusual 
variety in the questions to-night. You must not be 
surprised if I have omitted several. Of course if you 
send in questions that no man on earth can answer I feel 
at liberty to leave them out of the box rather than put 
them and myself in the box at the same time.” 

Question. ^^Cannot a company of Christians engage 
in a social game of cards in their home as well as any 
other game?” 

^^There is nothing wicked in a game of cards 
as a game any more than there is in a game of 
checkers or dominoes or authors. One trouble 
with cards is the fact that their associations are bad. 
Gamblers use cards. Cards are found in every wine shop 
in France and every beer garden in Germany and every 
saloon restaurant in America. There is also a great 
abuse of card playing by those wdio have become experts 
in the game and hundreds of young men have wasted 
the most precious hours of their lives and ruined their 
prospects for success in life by yielding to the fascina- 
tion of card parties night after nigh^ The great ob- 
jection to cards where there is any, is noCbecause they are 
wicked or the game sinful, but that the associations are 
evil and the tendency of card players isinvariably to waste 
too much precious time over the game. I know fen 


252 


JOHiY KINO’S 


young men who put in enough time winter evenings in 
card playing to learn a language or a trade. I do not 
know any game that uses up more valuable time than 
cards. Of course I am not referring to their use as a 
recreation or an amusement simply, but to the invaria- 
ble tendency in society to abuse the recreation, the same 
as dancing is abused, and make of it an occasion for 
throwing away time that ought to be used wisely. The 
Christian law governing amusements is very simple. It 
is right and Christian to do anything for amusement 
that leaves the mind and soul pure, refreshed, more 
ready to do God’s will, less selfish and with a growing 
love for Christ and His kingdom in the world. And 
any amusement that does not leave a person in that 
condition is probably harmful to mind, body, and soul.” 

Question. ^^Do you think it is dignified for a min- 
ister to ride a bicycle?” 

do, if he doesn’t fall off.” 

Question. ^Ts a church any more likely to fall into 
stereotyped ways with its meetings and services than 
other organizations?” 

^^No, considering the number of regular meetings held 
by the church in a year’s time it does not repeat itself 
or get into ruts any more than literary clubs or lodges 
or any other societies, There is a uniform sameness 


QUESTION CLASS. 


253 


about anything that occurs regularly. Nothing is so 
regularly the same as the daily papers. They print the 
same kind of news in the same column in the same posi- 
tion on the page day after day, year after year. The 
church is as free from stereotyped ways as any organiza- 
tion that has as many meetings and services.’’ 

Question. ^^What is the use of public prayer? Did 
not Christ condemn it when he said, ^But thou, when 
thou prayest enter into thy chamber and when thou 
hast shut thy door pray to thy Father in secret and thy 
Father who seest in secret shall reward thee openly.’ 
Did Christ ever pray in public?” 

^^Christ condemned the hypocrisy of the scribes and 
Pharisees who were in the habit of praying in the public 
streets in order to make a show of their piety. That 
was the reason he told his disciples to pray at their 
homes in secret. But Christ certainly believed in public 
prayer on the^ proper occasion and when offered in a 
proper spirit. He himself prayed aloud at the grave 
of Lazarus while surrounded by a great crowd of peo- 
ple. He also offered a long audible prayer in the pres- 
ence of his disciples. When the minister offers 
public prayer in church at a church prayer service 
or on any public occasion where it is proper it is for 
the purpose of devotion and recognition of divine pres- 


254 


JOHN KING^S 


ence and its supreine power. When the minister offers 
public prayer in the church service it should he as the 
mouth piece of all the people, bearing all their desires 
and communion up before the same throne of grace. 
Public prayer rightly used is an aid to public devo- 
tion and an inspiration to those who do not feel 
able to express in language their own vague but real 
wants.” 

Question. ^^Ought not people to learn how to pray 
in public as well as how to speak in public?” 

^^Yes, undoubtedly. A great many persons do not 
know how to pray in public. At the same time the pray- 
ers of an ignorant but devout person will often do more 
good to the hearers than the prayers of a cultured, intel- 
ligent person who prays to his audience instead of to 
God.” 

Question. am a clerk in a candy store. Christmas 
this year falls on Tuesday. My employer wants me to 
be at the store Sunday to get the trade of those people 
who can’t find time to buy during the week. What 
ought I to do?” 

^^Your employer has no right to ask you to work on 
Sunday. You have a right to tell him that you will 
serve him faithfully and honestly six days but you can- 
not and will not work for any man unnecessarily on 


QUESTION CLASS. 


255 


Sunday. The man who hires labor or the corporation 
that employs flesh and blood and then demands work 
seven days in a week under threat of discharging the 
men in case of refusal to work seven days is guilty of 
the crime of re-establishing slavery. For w'hat is it 
except slavery where a human being feels the grind of 
toil seven days in a week? If your employer says this is 
a special occasion and does not happen often, that is no 
argument. Once you have given up your Sunday to 
him it wull be easier for him to get you to do it again. 
If I were in your place or any one’s else I would not 
work for any man on Sunday to enable him to make a lit- 
tle more money* I would sooner lose my place 
and stand the change of finding another. There 
are some things that the money and favor of an 
employer ought never to be able to buy, and among 
them ought to be a man’s independence as regards 
his right to one day in seven for rest and wor- 
ship.” 

Question. work in a railroad office in a room 
with fifty other young men. In a recent census of reli- 
gious belief taken in this room only seven out of the 
fifty including myself were found to be in the habit 
of attending any religious service regularly. How can 
we seven men make our Christian lives felt by the 


256 


JOHN KING>S 


others? Is there anything specific that we can do to 
help make them Christians?’’ 

^^There is always the daily sermon of your character. 
Live your Christian life manfully and without cant 
or sanctimoniousness. Don’t wear an air of holier-than- 
thou that will be sure to repel instead of attract to Chris- 
tian life. This is the main thing. It is the constant 
thing. Any young man who isn’t a fool or a blockhead 
can tell a Christian after he has worked in the same 
office with him awhile. Let your light shine, but don’t 
keep sticking it uncomfortably into people’s faces. They 
can see it plain enough if it is burning. And just keep 
living your Christian faith right along day after day. 
Christian character is like a bicycle, you must keep it 
moving right along, if you don’t, it will tumble over. 
There will also perhaps come special opportunities when 
you can help particular men to become Christians. 
AYhen they come don’t be afraid of seizing them. If you 
really want to win a man to Christ he won’t feel offended 
if you tell him so when the right time comes. Only you 
want to be pretty sure that your own life is better than 
his. Else how will he see what there is to gain by being 
like you?” 

Question. sometimes feel as if I would like to be 
a Christian but I never have any emotion when I listen 


QUEST TON CLASS. 


257 


to preaching or when I am urged to live a Christian life. 
Am I to wait for the proper feeling before I am con- 
verted?” 

^^When you want to go to New York you go to one 
of the railroad stations in the city and buy a ticket. 
Then when the train is ready you present yourself at 
the gate and the gateman directs you to your train and 
you get on board. That is easy, isn’t it? Well, is it any 
harder to start in the Christian life if you want to go 
that way? What makes a Christian? Emotion? Feel- 
ing? Agony? Tears? No. Simply belief in the Lord 
Jesus Christ and daily life according to his teach- 
ings. The directions for becoming a Christian are just 
as simple as directions in railroad stations for going to 
some place on the road. After you buy your ticket 
to New York and the gateman says, ‘There’s your train,’ 
you don’t hang around the gate saying, T don’t feel 
any particular emotion; I am afraid I ought to wait 
until I feel different before I go to New York.’ The 
railroad official would stare and say if he had time to 
tend to your case, ‘What’s the matter, young man? 
What’s feeling got to do with it? Lemme see your paste- 
board. Why that’s all right. New York. Get right in. 
This train’s going there. All aboard for New York via 
Buffalo, Kochester, Syracuse and Albany!’ And if you 


258 


KING>S 


don't get on board, why, you would not get to New 
York, feeling or no feeling. 

it any different about starting for Heaven via the 
Christian life? You believe on the Lord Jesus Christ 
as the Eternal Life. You accept his life as your exam- 
ple. You put your faith in him and as a matter of will, 
of mind, of reason, of belief, you start on the Christian 
life. Christ never appealed to the emotions of men, 
he alw^ays appealed to their wills, their reason, 
their faith, to turn to righteousness and have salvation. 
There may be emotion in plenty, feeling in plenty at the 
time a human being begins to live the new life. But the 
emotion, the feeling, is not a condition of being saved. 
It is simply an accompaniment. Just as you might be 
weeping as you got on the train for New York as you 
thought of your past life and its sins in this city. But 
your weeping would not be necessary to get you to New 
York. It would simply be a circumstance of your trip.” 

Victoria who was present at this meeting of the 
Question Club went home with a new thought, new to' 
her of the Christian life. She had never professed her 
faith. She had always had the deepest reverence for 
Christ and more and more each year she had come to 
have a growing need of that great Presence in human 
life. Talking with Richard that evening and on other 


QUESTION CLASS. 


259 


days that followed she looked at the life of Christ and 
its relation to her own with joy and a conviction that 
made her say first to herself, afterwards to Eichard, 
^The Christ has become a necessity to me. I am ready 
to confess him. I want to live the life.’^ To Eichard all 
this deepened and intensified his affection. And for 
both of these souls as they planned the future happiness 
of their lot together the strongest tie that bound them 
daily more closely to each other was the fact that the 
religious faith of each was Christian and the motive of 
each was service to the Master in His kingdom on earth. 

All this experience developed Victoria wonderfully. 
The work she was doing in the slums, the volunteer 
service of her violin in the hospitals and jails took on a 
new and more blessed meaning. The Christ love began 
to breathe through it all. 

One Sunday shortly after this particular time, she 
was playing in a large hospital under the management 
of a Catholic sisterhood. It was a new place. She had 
never been there before. There were fifty beds in the 
ward. She stood nearly in the middle of the ward as 
she played. Eichard, Tom, and Eachel had come with 
her that afternoon. She had played a beautiful hymn, 
one of her own composing and had begun another selec- 
tion softly, when to Eichard’s alarm Victoria suddenly 


2G0 


JOHiV KINCl’S 


dropped the violin and running up to one of the cots 
fell upon her knees by the side of it crying out, “Victor! 
Victor 1^^ The rest drew near. There lay the brother, 
a wreck of his former handsome appearance. He gazed 
stupidly at Victoria and made some motion with his 
lips but did not speak. 

“Victor! Don’t you know me, Victor, your sister!” 

“Is he your brother, madam?” inquired the doctor 
who was present. 

“He is her twin brother,” said Richard gently. “He 
has been lost to her for over a year.” 

Victoria still called Victor’s name as she kneeled by 
him. But there was no answering speech. The doctor 
said gravely, 

“He was brought here a stranger two days ago. He 
was found in the streets. He has had a stroke of paraly- 
sis alfecting the throat and vocal cords. He cannot 
speak. It is doubtful if he will ever speak again.” 

“He was a remarkable singer,” said Tom in a low 
voice looking at the doctor while Rachel and Richard 
both tried to comfort Victoria who seemed overcome 
with the unexpected meeting. 

“He will never sing again,” said the doctor bluntly. 
“His vocal cords are destroyed.” 

Victor must have heard him. A horrible look came 


QUESTION CLASS. 


261 


over his face, wasted and soiled with passion and vice, 
and half raising himself on the cot by an awful exercise 
of will and desire he uttered a sound that was more ani- 
mal than human. It was the last effort of his once beau- 
tiful but abused gift of voice. At the terrible sound 
Victoria lay back again, and for the first time in her life 
fainted. 

Victor lay there with a face of impotent rage. He 
looked so ghastly that Tom exclaimed, 

^^He is dying!” 

The doctor bent over him. 

^^No, he will live.” 

^‘^But what a life!” thought Tom and the rest as 
they stood there smitten for the time being into infi- 
nite pity for the wasted broken humanity that lay 
there, tossed like wreck on the shore of the tempest 
beaten sea where so many once fair freighted human 
vessels on the mighty ocean of life have made shipwreck 
of their immortal souls. 


CHAPTEE XII. 


HAT scene in the hospital with Victor laid its 
mark on Victoria as long as she lived. If 
was a blessing for her that Eichard and Ea- 
chel had come into her thought of her future. These 
two tenderly came to her in this present trouble and she 
realized as the days went on that love and friendship 
are mighty boons to the distressed. For Victor did not 
recover. It was true that the surgeon had spoken the 
right word, the beautiful voice was gone forever. It was 
not until sometime had gone by that Victoria learned all 
the details of Victor’s career and his final return to Chi- 
cago and appearance in the hospital. These came to 
her from various sources as days went on. 

Victor had fallen again soon after securing his posi- 
tion with the London company. After leaving Victoria 
he had fully determined to reform and make the most of 
his vocal gift. For a short time he worked hard and 
lived the life of strictest morality. During that time he 
was all the rage in London. His great natural gift was 
supplemented for a little while by the kind of personal 
righteousness which makes such a gift a most tremen- 



JOHN KING^S QUESTION CLASS. 


263 


dous carrying power with the people. But one day at 
a Club restaurant he fell in with one of his New York 
acquaintances. He was persuaded to take up the cards 
again. Just a friendly game. He hesitated, yielded, 
and fell. His course from that day was very rapidly 
downward. He gambled nightly. Lost heavily. Forged 
a note of a nobleman who jv^as a semi-professional 
gambler and fled to the continent. He did not dare 
hire himself to sing for fear of discovery. He lived no 
one knew how. Only every day saw him sinking lower 
in vice and dissipation. An opportunity to sail for 
America came to him just when he was in danger of 
being arrested for his London crime. Once in New 
York he found himself penniless and completely adrift. 
It was then that he thought of going to Chicago to bor- 
row money or get it in some way from Victoria. So 
low as this had he sunk. He managed to secure his 
transportation to Chicago. The very day he entered 
the city an accident had happened to him in one of the 
streets. He could never tell what it was in detail. The 
shock of some collision either with a car or a cab had so 
affected him that in a half dazed condition he had 
wandered about the city nearly all night. Once he 
realized that he had fallen down and was lying in a pool 
of water near a hydrant. How long he had been there 


264 


JOi/iY KING’S 


he did not know. Then his limbs grew numb and cold. 
He lost all sense of his surroundings and when he came 
to himself he was in the hospital where Victoria dis- 
covered him. But it was true that paralysis of the up- 
per part of his body and of the vocal cords had in a 
moment of time thrown him a helpless wreck upon the 
care of the world. He could never sing again and he 
would never move about again. He was more helpless 
than a baby. 

Victoria took him home. There was nothing the 
hospital could do for him that she could not do. Victor 
showed no feeling but rage and madness at his con- 
dition. Victoria shuddered to think that if he had the 
power of speech he would probably use it to curse the 
day he was born. As time went on his feelings tow^ards 
his condition did not appear to change. There was pos- 
sibly a little softening in his manner when Victoria 
played for him as she always did at the close of the day 
no matter how tired she might be or what her profes- 
sional duties had been. Aside from that, he lay there 
in his room on the chair specially made for him, with a 
hard- heart and a rebellion against his fate that made 
the burden of his death in life a terrible thing for his 
sister to*bear. Only her Christian faith came to her at 
this time to support her in the greatest trial of her life. 


QUESTION CLASS. 


265 


With it was the love of llichard who now claimed the 
right to share all her burdens. ^^We will care for him 
together. It will be a part of my life with yours/’ he 
had said at once as soon as Victoria moved Victor to her 
house. Victoria had smiled up to Kichard through her 
tears and the future was already bright with peace and 
hope because there was some one to help lift this sorrow. 

The year had come to its close and the Question 
Class met for its last meeting at John King’s. It was 
the regular Monday night and happened to be the 31st 
of December. Many of the questions were appropriate 
to the thoughts of the old year. John King said he 
would save those for the last and answer a few miscel- 
laneous questions first. 

Question. ^Tf you had offended a person not mean- 
ing to do so would you apologize to him for having of- 
fended him?” 

^^Yes. Why not. If I offended some one not mean- 
ing to, he may not know that I did not intend it. He 
may think I did it purposely. If I go to him frankly 
and tell him it was unintentional it may change his feel- 
ing towards me and prevent a disagreeable and unneces- 
sary misunderstanding between us. Some people think 
they must stand upon their rights and never yield an 
inch unless they are in the wrong. But in a case of un- 


266 


JOEIJ KING’S 


intentional offense to a person there is nothing to be 
gained by a proud refusal to say anything to the of- 
fended person. It is true there are always some people 
who are continually imagining slights and insults. 
They feel so important that they think other people are 
thinking of them all the time. It would be foolish to 
be continually running to these people and asking their 
pardon for having offended them. The best way some- 
times is to let them alone and say nothing. But in the 
case of a misunderstanding where one has become of- 
fended through a misjudgement of your action it 
wouldn’t hurt you and may do much good to apologize. 
We must remember this. There is no shame or remorse 
or repentance in such an apology. If you don’t mean to 
offend a person who is offended all you have to apolo- 
gize for may be possibly a little carelessness or ignorance 
or haste or something of that sort. Of course if you 
have once explained matters and the offended person 
still feels offended in spite of your apology you have 
done all you can. But you will not miss anything to 
do that. You will be the better for it.” 

Question. ^What is the remedy for a person who 
does not keep the Y. P. S. C. E. pledge?” 

“Do you mean the remedy for some one else to apply 
to the person or the remedy for the person to apply to 


QUESTION CLASS. 


267 


himself? There is no remedy for a person who breaks 
his word except being born again. But this question 
is honestly asked no doubt and ought to be seriously 
answered. There are a good many young people who 
take the pledge in the Endeavor Society without realiz- 
ing what it means. Just as there are a good many peo- 
ple who join the church and never think of their prom- 
ises to support the church services or do their share of 
its work. What is the remedy? More personal Chris- 
tianity. More understanding of the meaning of conse- 
cration and devotion to the cause of the Kingdom of 
God. This is not a remedy that can be prescribed and 
given to the patient like a patent medicine. But a 
member of the Y. P. S. C. E. who regularly fails to keep 
the pledge is in need of more honesty with himself if 
he wants to continue as a faithful member of the En- 
deavor or that particular society. If the person is a 
member and wants to be a member of the Endeavor it 
is far more harmful to him to take the Society Pledge 
and then not keep it than it is never to join the society 
at all. It is always a harm to character to say you will 
do a thing, to make a promise and then fail to do it.’’ 

Question. “Is it desirable for a young man to spend 
so much time in muscular development or athletic 
sports?” 


2G8 


JOHN KING’S 


^^Not if the result is the making of muscle in a pro- 
fessional manner. Professional athletes are obliged to 
keep at it all their lives if they wish to live. Some of 
the most noted athletes have died of consumption or 
heart disease within a short time after they have ceased 
to keep up their professional training and the average 
duration of the professional athlete’s life is far below 
that of the average healthy citizen. What is needed by 
the average man for business, law, medicine, the min- 
istry, or teaching, is not abnormal biceps or abnormal 
lungs and heart but good sound organs all working 
harmoniously and well balanced. The longest lived 
people in the world are ministers and as a rule they are 
not noted for excessive muscular development. As a 
rule they live temperate, wholesome, moral lives, do not 
train any part of the body to excess and are cheerful 
and contented in spite of small salaries and large drains 
on vital energy. The best physical training does not 
have for its object the making of professional athletes 
but sound, wholesome, well-proportioned bodies fitted 
to stand the wear and tear of the ordinary average daily 
life.” 

Question. ^'Would you advise a young man to 
marry before he has made his fortune?” 

“It depends on the girl he marries. Yes, in most 


QUESTION CLASS. 


2C9 


cases I should say a young man need not wait until he 
has made his fortune. He ought to be able to support 
his wife before he marries. That is, he ought to be able 
to provide a home. That home may be very humble 
but it may be very happy. If the young wife is the 
right sort of a helpmeet she will wish to assist in mak- 
ing the home happier and more comfortable and useful 
as her husband’s business prospers and grows. If I 
were a young woman I should hesitate to marry a young- 
man who had waited until he had made his fortune be- 
fore he asked me to be his wife. I should feel as if he 
thought his fortune was worth more than himself. 
Thousands of the happiest, best marriages ever known 
have been those where the young husband and wife have 
shared together from the start the responsibilities and 
toils and pleasures of home making.” 

Question. ^^Ought every girl to know how to keep 
house?” 

^^Of course. Even the Queen of Holland it is said 
can prepare a meal and serve it better than any of the 
servants in the palace. It does not make any difference 
how much money a woman may have or how many 
servants she can hire, not to know how to keep house 
herself may determine her happiness as home keeper.” 

Question. ''How soon do you call a person old?” 


*270 


JOHN KING^S 


^^Most anywhere between one and one hundred. 
Some people are old at twenty-five. Some are young at 
seventy-five. Some never grow old at all. Years do 
not make people grow old. It is the heart, the feelings, 
the within, not the without. Old age is a purely rela- 
tive term. I used to think thirty was a mark of grow- 
ing old. But after reaching and passing that mark I 
am inclined to put it -at fifty or sixty, but I don’t want 
anyone to call me old even then.” 

Question. ^^What advantage is there in thinking 
over the past?” 

^^Yot any unless the result is to make the future 

better. The past is full ol lessons. If we learn them 

we shall be better for it. Nations and individuals can 

learn very much from the history of past experiments, 

trials, mistakes or ventures. He is the wise man who 

profits by his experience. The fool is the one who 

never learns from experience. It is good to go back 

over a year’s history and note where we have failed and 

been wrong and made blunders and then, not dwelling 

unnecessarily over what is gone, use the heritage of it 

all to, go on in a stronger, wiser way. The greatest 

value of the past lies in its directing power for the 
/ 

present and future. Every year sets up its guide posts 
of warning or direction. To fall into the same pit again 


QUESTION CLASS. 


271 


or to get lost in the same woods a second time when the 
past year has plainly marked the safe and right way, is 
to stumble through life blind and foolish never profiting 
by that truest of all teachers, Experience.’^ 

Question. ^‘Do you think it does any good to make 
New Year’s Resolutions?” 

“Yes, if you keep them. It is good to make good 
resolutions every day and keep them. A good many 
people make New Year’s Resolutions like church con- 
ventions or conferences before election and then break 
them all to pieces when it comes to voting. All the to- 
days ought to be better than the yesterdays; all the 
to-morrows better than the to-days. Why make so many 
good resolves on New Year’s Day. Why not make 
them alDthe year every morning? New Year’s resolu- 
tions are too much like Sunday religion. They won’t 
stand the wear and tear of the market place and the 
counting^ room and the rush of the world’s traffic.” 

Question. “What is the hope of the world for the 
New Year?” 

“The hope of the world for the New Year is the New 
Life as lived and taught by Jesus Christ. The hope of 
the world is in the possibilities of Regeneration of Hu- 
manity. The greatest need of our nation, of our 
country, of all nations, of all countries, is a need of 


272 


JOHxY KING’S 


being born again. The most hopeful truth ever taught 
by Christ was the truth of regenerated manhood and 
womanhood. In a little while, two or three hours, we 
shall as we mark the sweep of earthly time step over the 
threshold into a new year. It will mean a great deal to us 
if we put off the old man at that time. It will mean every- 
thing. A new humanity is the only hope of a better 
world. And a new humanity cannot come to the world 
excej)t it come through the Christ of God. He is the 
Hope of the world. He is the Way and the Truth and 
the Life.” 

John King paused a moment as he reached the end 
of the questions and looked thoughtfully and lovingly 
around the room. Then the sight of his familiar com- 
pany touched him deeply: There were Tom and Kaehel, 
Kichard and Victoria, Miss Fergus and many others, 
some of them careless, indifferent, thoughtless, and 
others noble, prayerful, Christian in heart and purpose, 
all of them with youth and hope and joy in life. John 
King’s heart went out to them. 

‘Tt may be,” he said gently after a pause, ^That I 
may not be with you through this new year. Changes 
will come to all or many of you. We have asked a great 
many questions this year. No one knows better than 
myself how incomplete have been the answers. But I 


QUESTION CLASS. 


273 


hope there is one question we may all ask and answer be- 
fore we meet again. It is this, 

‘^Am I in possession of that eternal life which is the 
new life of the soul? That is the question. And I can- 
not answer that for you. You must each one answer 
that for yourself. May God grant you answer it right, 
and before we say to one another T wish you a Happy 
Hew Year.’ ” 

The next day Eichard was sitting in the room which 
Tom and he had used now for sometime as a common 
work shop. He wag finishing a new story. It had cost 
him the hardest work of his life. For three years he 
had toiled over it and this New Year’s day he had the 
satisfaction of putting the final touches to the manu- 
script. It lay in a good sized pile before him and he 
leaned back in his chair and looked at it thoughtfully. 
His mind went back to his first attempt and his strug- 
gles to get a publisher. The same ideal in writing still 
possessed him. But he had now an added enthusiasm 
in his love for Victoria. wonder what she will think 
of it?” he kept saying to himself. He had not told her 
yet. He wished to make her a little surprise. So Kich- 
ard was a very happy person that morning as he finally 
rose and after his old habit began to walk up and down 
the room talking to himself. Tom had gone out early 


274 


JOHN KING^S 


on some business and the two were planning to go and 
see King a little while in the evening. He had invited 
them to a little company, he said. It was very select 
and he wanted Eichard and Tom to wear their best 
clothes and be as entertaining and handsome 
as possible. The boys were accustomed to King’s 
humor, but they knew from the way he spoke 
that they would meet some specially interesting 
people. 

Suddenly the door burst open and Tom entered. He 
walked right up to his old chum and said — 

^^Dick, will you be best man at a wedding pretty 
soon?” 

^^What!” cried Eichard holding Tom off at arm’s 
length. Then he answered with an imitation of Tom’s 
manner, ^‘Well, I will if I’m not otherwise engaged!*' 
Then in his own manner; 

‘Tom, is it congratulations? Shall I wish you and 
Eachel a Happy Kew Year?” 

“Yes, only you must say Eachel and you. Always 
mention the most important first. Dick, I don’t know 
just how I brought it around but Eachel told me this 
morning that she was willing, seeing it was me, to 
change her name from Brooks to Howard. I must have 
acted like a fool or an idiot but Eachel seemed to under- 


QUESTION CLASS. 


275 


stand what I wanted. She’s the brightest girl I ever 
saw.” 

I believe if the truth were known Kachel had 
to do the proposing!” 

^^It’s false!” shouted Tom. “I was as bold as a man 
walking up to a Krupp gun loaded with dynamite.” 
Tom was bursting with excitement and Eichard never 
saw him so wonderfully happy. He pulled out of his 
overcoat pockets a lot of toys and laid them on the table. 
Eichard laughed until he cried at the sight. Tom com- 
ing home from his interview with Eachel had not been 
able to contain himself. Eunning across a peddler of 
comic toys he had bought two pockets full. There was 
a tin monkey that would climb up a string if another 
string was pulled. There was a mouse made of brass 
that ran around on the floor in a very lifelike way. 
And a small cat that when wound up chased a mouse by 
clock work. There was a snake made of joints of wood 
and rubber that turned around the leg of a chair in a 
very serpentine fashion, and a great tin spider that 
crawled backward and forward over the table. Tom set 
them all going and laughed and laughed with Eichard 
Until his curious excitement was worked off. Then 
suddenly he swept the toys up into a corner of the room, 
threw the cushion of a chair over them and said — 


276 


JOHN KINQ’S 


^^Dick, you must think I am crazy. But I never 
proposed to a girl before and this has upset me. But 
Dick, Dick, I am the happiest man in the city.” 

“I claim that distinction,” replied Kichard. 

^^Oh, well, yours is an old claim. No, you can’t be 
as happy as I am. Miss Stanwood is a genius and you 
are a genius. Now geniuses can’t love each other as 
much as common people like me and Rachel.” 

^^You mean Rachel and me.” 

course. And I didn’t mean to call her a com- 
mon person either. Why Dick, she — ” 

^^Yes, everything will be ^she’ now,” replied Richard 
laughing. 

Tom sobered down at once. All the excitement 
and the fun vanished. He sat down and after a while 
said, 

^TOck, if I did blunder in the asking I know enough 
to know that the greatest blessing that ever came into 
my life has come now. I thank God he has so filled 
my life with this happiness. And in His sight I mean 
to be worthy of it.” 

^^God has been very good to us both, old fellow.” 
Richard threw his arm over Tom’s shoulder as they sat 
near together and if there was a hint of moisture in the 
eyes of these two grown up young men no one saw it 


QUJ^STION CLASS. 


2t7 


except tlie eye of the tin spider which peeped out from 
under one corner of the cushion. 

On the way to John King’s that evening Tom said, 

‘^^Dick, we ought to tell John King the news and 
engage him in advance. He’s awfully busy in June.” 

^‘'June! You don’t mean to say Eachel will marry 
you this year?” 

^^She will if I ask her,” said Tom boldly. “I never 
believed in long engagements.” 

Richard laughed and when the two reached the min- 
ister’s house he insisted that Tom should break the 
news seeing he had mentioned it. 

They were early and the other guests had not ar- 
rived. John King was alone. His sister was superin- 
tending some work in the other room. 

^^Come before the fire,” he said after hats and over- 
coats had been removed. 

They sat down and John King at once said, ^^An 
open fire is the most home like thing I know.” 

Richard nudged Tom as an indication that this was 
a good opening for the news of his engagement. Tom 
shuffled nervously in his chair and then said, to Rich- 
ard’s discomfiture, 

^^Have you heard the news, Mr. King, of Miss Stan- 
wood’s engagement?” 


278 


JOH^^ KING’S 


said King turning around quickly. what 
company? Is she going to leave Chicago?’^ 

^^Company!’’ ejaculated Tom. ^^Oh, I see. Why to 
the Kichard Bruce company, Limited.” 

King sat up and looked over at Eichard with an im- 
pulsive look of very great delight. 

^^Bruce, is that a fact?” 

^^Yes, sir, very much so.” 

“Then I congratulate you on having won the most 
lovely young woman in all Chicago.” 

“I don’t know about that,” put in Tom. “I won’t 
fight over it though.” 

King looked over at Tom with another gleam of 
light in his great dark eyes. 

“Well, well, to think of you two fellows going off 
together in this way. Oh, you needn’t tell me, 
Tom. I don’t need to be knocked down to take a 
hint. Only I don’t believe the pretty Miss Eachel 
said yes so very long ago or I should have known it 
before this.” 

“She proposed to Tom this morning, Mr. King,” 
said Eichard, “and Tom couldn’t help himself.” 

“Didn’t want to either,” replied Tom. 

“Boys,” said King rising and standing before the 
fire. “I am not used to talking without manuscript 


QUESTION CLASS. 


279 


and this news takes me unprepared. I don’t know just 
what to say.” 

^^You might propose three cheers and a tiger,” sug- 
gested Tom. 

Just then the bell rang and King said, “Give me 
time to think it over. Meanwhile, dear fellows, you 
have my heartiest congratulations. The other guests 
have arrived. I think you know them.” 

Richard and Tom rose as the figures came into the 
fire lit room. They had been looking so hard at the 
fire that they could not see very distinctly. Then John 
King said with great formality, “Miss Stanwood, Mr. 
Bruce. Miss Brooks, Mr. Howard. I believe you have 
met before.” For a minute they all stood there solemn- 
ly and then Tom said, “Happy to make your acquaint- 
ance, Miss Brooks.” Something in his tone was so irre- 
sistibly funny that Victoria’s pure sweet laughter was 
instantly caught up by all of them and just then John 
King’s sister announced dinner. 

“Come,” said King with his most delightful hearti- 
ness, “come, Victoria. I am old enough to say so. Miss 
Stanwood, to-night. Victoria and Richard, you may sit 
here, and Rachel and Tom, you may sit here.” 

After grace had been asked King looked at the very 
happy faces and said, “It looks as if I had planned this 


2g0 


JOHN KING’S 


meeting, but honest now I didn’t. I had invited three 
or four other members of our Institutional Class but at 
the last moment they sent word they could not come.’^ 

^^Do you feel very sorry, sir?” asked Tom. 

[ ^Tll try to be reconciled to their absence, Tom.” 

^^So will we,” said Tom with a look at Rachel. 

^‘^The old, old story,” murmured John King as he 
sat there delighted with this company of happy lovers. 
^^Heaven grant they may have many Happy Kew Years 
in the love of their true hearts and the service of God.” 

What is the end of our story is really the beginning 
of the story of our characters. Victoria and Rachel 
were married at Victoria’s house in June, as Tom had 
suggested. It was a quiet wedding occasion and of 
course John King was the minister. Tom and Rachel 
began housekeeping in one of the suburbs. Victoria 
after her marriage left the public stage and gave her 
great musical talent entirely for the relief of the dis- 
tressed and suffering and sinful. Richard and she 
worked together in the dark places of humanity and 
gave of their best and choicest for the blessing of the 
world, and always in their home there was the burden 
calmly and lovingly borne of the wreck of Victor. 
Every night of her life Victoria played for him. The 
music seemed to quiet his restless rage of soul but did 


QUESTION CLASS. 


281 


not seem to change him. The burden was always the 
same. It remained in the home life of these two children 
of God and the Master’s strength upheld them in it all. 

The evening of the last day of the year was drawing 
to its close when Victoria and Ei chard who had been 
sitting before the fire after tea heard steps outside and 
presently the bell rang and Eachel and Tom came in. 
The visits between the friends were frequent and they 
drew up chairs about the fire and chatted over old times 
as the approaching New Year carried them back to the 
events of a year ago. 

^Ts it true, Mrs. Howard,” inquired Richard, ^That 
Tom was so confused about a year ago tomorrow that he 
didn’t know what he was talking about?” 

Eachel, prettier than ever, turned to Tom and said, 
^Tom, what did you tell Mr. Bruce that morning?” 

^^Honest now, I didn’t tell him anything in detail — 
only — that I was an idiot and that wasn’t any news to 
Dick.” 

^^An idiot! After you left me?” 

^Df course!” said Tom boldly. am always out 
of my mind away from you.” They were all laughing 
in the lightness of their hearts over this not very serious 
talk when the bell rang again and soon John King was 
ushered in. 


282 


JOHN KING^S 


^'What! Firelight! No, don’t light up for me. 
Let me sit here and grow young where you young peo- 
ple can’t see my grey hairs.” 

So they widened the circle and let him in and King 
led them to bring up the old times and noted it with 
great pleasure as the light revealed the pure develop- 
ment of face and soul in each one of his young friends. 

Finally Victoria arose and went into the next room 
where Victor lay. She was gone several moments and 
at last to the surprise of the rest she came back wheeling 
Victor. 

asked him if he didn’t want to come out here to- 
night,” Victoria whispered to Richard as she bent down 
over him. ^^And he said yes.” 

She began to play while the rest sat in the firelight 
and the pale set face of the once proud handsome Victor 
stared out of its reclining position with the firelight 
glancing on it so that John King from his position was 
the only one of the company who clearly caught any 
glimpse of it. 

Victoria played, as she always did, with a tenderness 
and pathos that had lost but little since the day of her 
public triumphs. To-night she played something of 
her own composing. It was a prayer. The friends sat 
in perfect silence. John King had his hands clasped 


QUESTION GLASS. 


283 


over his knee. The fire danced on the wall. The music 
seemed to he a part of the light. Victor’s face lay white 
and unmoved as always. Suddenly as John King looked 
up at this white cold face, a tear rolled over its cheek. 
The firelight revealed that much. Ko one else saw it. 
Not even Victoria. Only one tear. ^^Yet it might 
mean a soul redeemed,” John King thought, ^^Ko,” he 
said to himself, will not say anything to Victoria 
about it to-night. I will speak of it to-morrow.” The 
music went on, and to John King it came from heaven 
now. When it ceased, Victoria wheeled Victor back into 
the other room. 

Mr. King had already risen to go. 

Happy New Year to you all. The happiest of 
all your lives!” He spoke to all four of them but he 
looked at Victoria and Kichard thinking of that warm 
tear that had rolled over that marble cheek. 

^The same to you, sir!” came the greeting from the 
four friends as they stood together and J ohn King went 
out and left them there on the threshold of another 
great stretch of God’s time, not knowing the future but 
ready to commit it to God’s keeping and strong in the 
service of Him who is the rightful Master of us all. 


THE END. 


Charles M. Sheldon’s Books 


In His Steps: What Would Jesus Do?” . $ 

Crucifixion of Phillip Strong, 

Robert Hardy’s Seven Days, 

His Brother’s Keeper, 

Richard Bruce, 

The Twentieth Door, 

John King’s Question Class, 

ALL BOUND IN PAPER. 


BOUND IN CLOTH, 

Price, 75 cents each. 

Also uniform with the above and selling at the same pricej 
A Matter of Business, By William 0. Stiles. 

Other books by C. M. Sheldon 

Redemption of Freetown, cloth, 25c. 

Any five of the 25c. books to one address, $1.00 
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IN HIS STEPS, Illustrated, 

Large type, gilt top, 12 full-page illustrations, cloth 
cover design in blue, white and gold. In box, $1.25 


Sent postpaid on receipt of price by 

ADVANCE PUBLISHING COMPANY 

215 Madison Street, Chicago. 


33 93 


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